Allegorical Nonsense

Fundamental Truth

2010-11-29T10:52:00.000-08:00

I just realised a fundamental truth that has somehow eluded me until now, and it is this: At any given time, there is a limited amount of money in the world*. Meaning that if I want money, I need to get it from someone else. There are several ways of going about this. There are people who try to get a few people with a lot of money to give them some, particularly at the same time as the people who they are getting money from are getting money from other people. These include the professionals of this world - lawyers, accountants, engineers. There are people who try to get lots of people with a little bit of money to give them some, particularly at the same time as the people who they are getting money from are getting enjoyment. These include the retailers of this world, the coffee shops, the supermarkets, the door to door salesmen. There are people who try to get people with a little bit more money to give them a little bit more, and end up also getting people who don't have quite enough money to give them a little bit more, particularly at the same time as the people who they are getting money from are living some kind of dream. These are the luxury good suppliers, the car manufacturers, the fancy restaurants, the brand label clothing retailers, the niche marketers, the addiction sellers. There are people who try to be everything to everyone, and often those people fail (apparently). There are also people who tell people lies in order to get money from those people, and often those people end up in gaol, or incredibly wealthy, or both. And then there are people who don't try to get people to give them money, and wait for people to come to them to give them money. The problem with these people is that it is fundamentally difficult to convince someone that you and they will both get more happiness by them giving you their money, since people will generally feel their own emotions more strongly than yours. It takes effort to do this. Sometimes the effort is not worth the yield. But often it is, and you just don't realise it because you missed something, like the fundamental truth that there is a limited amount of money.

* Let's keep on the side the idea of "printing money" (which governments can apparently do but not really) and "creating wealth", which I'm not even sure if it exists (probably it does but it's difficult to sort the truth from the propaganda).

Gelatinous Mess

2009-01-16T05:20:00.001-08:00

The title of this post is the name of a band which doesn't exist yet, but as soon as I can figure out which musical instrument I play, and find a few others who play other ones (with the potential for duplication not exceeding two*), it will. And we will have a name which bears absolutely no resemblance to the fact that I'm cooking right now.

An idea that has been developing in my mind recently. There are lots of street cats in Tel Aviv. In fact, there are lots of street cats all over Israel. In the absence of any really good explanation as to why they are here and how they survive, I am convinced that they are in fact a secret organization, which will mobilise to defend the city in times of peril. The fact that they haven't yet mobilised is very good evidence that we have not yet been in a situation of serious enough peril, which I interpret as a good thing. However, if any one or more of our national destructors would ever pose an existential threat to our existence (is there any other kind?), a signal would be broadcast throughout the city. Small furry heads would rise from garbage bins and peek out from under cars. Eyes would change colour, become brighter. Ears would prick and nostrils flare, as sensory organs turn from mere gnawn scruffs into intelligence gathering units. The indestructible cat army would arise, and do all kinds of Kung Fu Panda things.

Honestly, everyone else has a mythology; why shouldn't we?

Back to the saucepan.

* Otherwise it would become triplication, I believe, followed by quadruplication.

Some welcome recognition of Scrabble at the highest levels

2008-10-23T15:08:00.001-07:00

This just in from xkcd:

Clearly Randall Munroe should be introduced to a2z WordFinder, the online searchable SOWPODS (international Scrabble) dictionary, in which case he would have seen that also "trochils" is acceptable (as is "coistril"). Problem solved.

The Kiwi Conspiracy

2008-03-10T12:57:00.001-07:00

Now, I'm not one for conspiracy theories.

In general, I tend to believe that even if something were to be true, like that the US government has been covering up contact between the Merovingians and some advanced species which if they're so advanced why don't they learn to speak goddamn English and have proper ambitions like investing in real estate like the rest of us, since the 1960s or so, or like quantum theory or something, it is probably not really all that relevant to my life, and probably not worth investing my time and money in by reading books with names like "From Darkness into Light" or "The Twelfth Dimension" or by talking to people who rarely bathe.

But I have personally broken through a conspiracy theory so powerful, so relevant to my day-to-day life, that I have no choice but to share it with my reading audience. If it means I've got to stop bathing from now on, then so be it. Here it is:

You don't actually need to peel kiwi fruit in order to eat it.

That's correct, ladies and gentlemen. All those years that they told you that to eat the kiwi fruit, you had to cut it in half and try to scoop out the flesh with a spoon, perhaps inexpertly try to peel it with a knife, all in all making a big mess of yourself and the bed*, all those years were wasted years, ladies and gentlemen.

Once you realise that you can actually eat the skin of the kiwi fruit, in a manner similar to, say, an apple, as opposed to, say, an orange, be prepared for your life to change dramatically. You will be, on the whole, more cheerful, less frustrated at peeling, and far more likely to be dated by a Hollywood celebrity.

Having said that, I've got to say that my tongue does feel a bit furry from the experience ...

* Note: I strongly advise not eating fruit in bed. What would the wife say when she comes home to find the bedsheets discoloured with a sticky discharge? Clearly a recipe for disaster.

Sean Lemon

2007-05-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

To be hummed (through the nose) to the tune of Sean Lennon's "Dead Meat":

Na-sal
Oh this song is so na-sal
Like a peg on my no-strils
Like a peg on my no…se
Yeah-eh, yeah-eh.

Sounds like
Sounds like something familiar
Something I've heard before, like
Like an Andrew Lloyd We-bber
Mu…sical.

Midnight
Not a sound on the pavement
Has the moon lost her mem-ry
She is smiling alo…ne
Yeah-eh, yeah-eh.

Th-e word "severed" is an
Anagram of "deserve"
Oh, also "red eves"
Is an anagram of "deserve".

Said the cannibal to his victim ...

2007-05-03T05:04:00.000-07:00

... "I just love seeing fresh faces".

I actually made that joke in a dream last night. I think it's pretty good for my subconscious.

Is anyone else a sleeping comedian?

Shamefaced and Bareless

2007-04-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

And now for some shameless and barefaced abuse of this non-commercial medium for advertising (and recommendation) purposes:

1. We are going to be in Australia from 20/7 - 20/9 and are looking to sublet our beautiful, well-located Tel Aviv apartment. If anyone knows anyone who might like to sublet during that period (subject to our landlord agreeing), please let me know. That's the advertisement.

And now for the recommendation.

2. If anyone can suggest the perfect honeymoon location near Australia for two weeks in September (taking into account weather conditions at that time of year), please let me know.

Now, that wasn't so painful, was it?

Words that seem like they shouldn't exist

2007-03-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Alright class, today we are looking at words that seem like they shouldn't exist.

Words that look like they've got too many bits
Ungainlily? Or ungainlyly? I'm all for the second one.
In the same vein, "slyly". "Slily"? Silly.
In Hebrew: חמימים. As in, "דברים חמימים" ("warm things") (or is it "חמימיים"? Even better!)

Words that mean the opposite of themselves, or almost do
Sanction. Are you approving it? Or imposing penalties on it?
Proscribe. Just too close to "prescribe".

To be continued.

People are the most unpredictable of obstacles

2007-03-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Only when you ride a bicycle do you realise just how truly flippant the human spirit is. Sometimes it seems that people are going out of their way to walk backwards across an entire footpath simply to collide with you, and then blame you (me) for riding on the footpath in the first place! What, are they crazy?! I'm not going to ride on the road! That's dangerous!

And you start to create gross generalisations about people's ability to use their peripheral vision, audition and spatial sense. Men are generally more aware of the bicyclist whose path they are blocking and who is squeakily grinding to a halt behind them than women. People on mobile phones are the least aware of all. This possibly says more about the prejudiced bicyclist (me again!) than about the pedestrian.

And you start to appreciate the true complex randomness of human nature and movement. Free wills, erratically stumbling their way through life, or automatons following a complex but fixed predetermined path, have it as you will - the dance is truly beautiful. Just annoying.

SVO

2007-02-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

The great weakness of English as a Subject-Verb-Object language only really becomes apparent when it forces you to hang a name in the air for the eternity it takes to get out "died". No object can follow, of course, and it is lucky that this is so, because the difficulty in forming the name, with its potential to be followed by an infinite number of verbs, knowing that the one to come is the ultimate intransitive, is only exceeded by the impossibility of getting out anything further.

I wrote the above to myself on the back of a Service Agreement while I was waiting for the family of the deceased to arrive at a recent funeral. While the body was being placed in the ground, I was mentally describing the light-brown colouration of the fringes of the tallit which had been unwrapped from the body of the dead boy, brought out from the grave by the man whose job it is to jump into graves with dead bodies and make sure they lie properly, and laid on the stretcher which just a few minutes beforehand had been followed by all of the mourners to that place, and which was now lying just near my foot.

I had left it until now.

I have a funny relationship with death. I relate to the dead person, thinking that maybe that's me and my living is the illusion. I relate to the family, to their genuineness, and try to let them know that no matter how unconventional they think their feelings are, it's okay to feel it while I'm there. Having some brief experience in the world of mourning from the inside, I think it's very common that the mourners themselves feel pressure to feel in a certain way, to act in a certain way. In most cases, if you ask the mourners, they will probably say that it's like any occasion where they are hosting guests - they will act in a certain way and try to control the behaviour of those around them so that their guests feel comfortable. Davka I think that death is the one occasion where we should be released from these bonds of politeness, and allowed to feel whatever the hell we want.

Dream Interpreters - Have Your Way

2006-12-20T03:53:00.000-08:00

I had the strangest dream(s) last night. The parenthesised "s" is because I never seem to know whether my dreams work in installments, with me waking up in between and falling asleep to the next episode.

I was with my cousin Nadav and someone else (possibly my brother?) in a house, with no real purpose. The problem was that there were tiny holes in the walls of this house, out of which arrows would occasionally fly at us, for no apparent reason. We thought it possible that the arrows flew out due to some kind of motion or position sensor, since it seemed that in certain places in the house (in particular I remember wanting to lie on the bed, and being bombarded with six arrows in the back especially there) the arrows were triggered more than in others. At the beginning, we tried to move as little as possible, only one step at a time, in order to find out what would trigger the arrows. After a while, during which time I pulled some arrows out of my back, bringing with them sizeable chunks of flesh, my cousin decided that he didn't want to play anymore - I think because his girlfriend wasn't letting him. So somehow he left the game. But somehow, when I decided much (and many arrows in the back) later that I didn't want to play anymore, I had to convince one of the partners from my work that it was time to stop, and he explained that there was some kind of penalty and that I would have to continue it until the end the next time anyway.

On a side note, it's interesting that I very rarely remember my dreams, in particular well into the next day. Well, it's now 2:06pm, and my recollection, though far from perfect, is admirably existent.

Anyone who would like to have a stab at interpreting the dream, may take her/his best shot.

Wanted: Career Advice

2006-11-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

I think I'm in need of some good career advice. And I'll tell you why. If you were to ask me what I'm looking for in a job, I think the answer would be: "To really connect with people. To bring some kind of happiness, or maybe peace, to people's lives, including mine." This is not to say that I don't want to earn money. I want to feel that I'm independent and not living off other people's charity. I don't want to be poor. I'm even not shy to say that money can buy stuff which can contribute to my happiness. But it turns out that money is a pretty relative thing – there is always someone with more, and there is always someone with less. Lots of people on either side, in fact. And money doesn't seem to be the consistently critical factor determining the level of satisfaction, or happiness, or peace, or lack of restlessness in the lives of the people on either side.

Given that, I have a problem. I see everybody around me, and their dreams. They seem to want to do the GMAT, to study an MBA, or maybe a Masters of Law or something that will make them money. They seem to want to work in high-powered fields where large amounts of money are paid to you in return for sacrificing your every waking second to working and/or thinking/talking/breathing work. [Note: Even as I write this, I note that "everybody" is an absolute misnomer. The vast majority of my friends are not doing the above. Many of them are actually following where their dreams (i.e. not money) are taking them. But the fact that at times like these I seem to blot them out of my thoughts is part of the problem].

To delve a little deeper, I see those people wanting those things, in some cases succeeding, in some cases failing, and I think: "I can do that. I'm smart. I can do the brain stuff that you've got to do to do that." And it's true. I can do the brain stuff. That thing behind my nose (to quote a really good movie I just saw – La science des rêves) works really well with lots of things. And then the guilt kicks in. It derives from the dreaded word "potential". The word appeared many times on my school report card. And it's a scary word. Because having "potential" means that you're not doing the "actual". And not only that, it sets up a presumption that you should be doing the actual, but aren't. And when you don't even know what the actual is, or how you should be doing it, or why, it all turns into a bad feeling.

It's because of this bad feeling that I found myself wasting my day today making an application for a job which I probably (I say probably because, as usual, I don't even have enough information to make an informed decision – but my emotions say probably) don't even want, for a position that I wouldn't know what to do with it if I were to get it, purely because it seems to be the kind of job that I feel like I should want. And then I did sample questions for the GMAT exams, which is all well and good, until you take into account that the sole purpose of those exams is to winnow away inappropriate candidates for studying an MBA program; put that together with the fact that if I ended up doing an MBA, it would contribute absolutely nothing to being anyplace that I actually want or will want to be, and you see how the problem arises yet again. Oh, and I checked out a Masters of Law at Stanford University – it is almost certainly true that Stanford University has a good teaching reputation, but the main reason I'm attracted to studying there is that there are squirrels there (I visited once in my youth, and was amazed to find that squirrels not only genuinely exist, but roam freely on the lawns).

So this is where you, my studio audience comes in. Taking into account that you are a select few, who have made somewhat select life choices, I don't expect objectivity, so fire away. But don't even try to tempt me into academia – I was frightened away from that (along with politics, its not-so-distant cousin) a long time ago.

ושיניתם לבביך

2006-11-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

A change of heart is sorely needed.

Today, my fiancee and I attended the amended and contracted Gay Pride March. Well, it was originally a march. As a result of fears and negotiations and security concerns and all the rest of it, it was turned into a static event in an enclosed stadium surrounded on all sides with a wide and sweeping police presence.

The event, itself, was wonderful. It was a pleasure to see so many people who were not prepared to be intimidated, who were prepared to take the risk, and come together to stand up for themselves, their friends or family members, their partners. The drag queen comperes were also funny.

But what was incredible was that the only form of provocation that I could see was of the intellectual and emotional kind.

People seem to have the view that gay & lesbian people are ipso facto naked paedophile nymphomaniacs, who would walk down the main street of Mea Shearim humping haredi children and animals, to the tune of Dana International's Viva La Diva, if they could. It turns out that in practice, the Israeli Gay & Lesbian community are, on the whole, responsible and sympathetic to the sensitivities of other minority groups (of which haredim still are one or more) - and are, moreover, non-violent - and are more interested in having people stop trying to harm them than really anything else.

For me, this was the reason it was important that the March occur in Jerusalem, and this was the reason it was important for me to be there. It is impossible that Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish State, will turn into a hub of theocracy and intolerance. It is impossible that with the Jewish People's experience of vilification and persecution, we will allow minorities to be vilified and persecuted in our midst. Clearly it happens, and more often than we would like to believe. But not on my watch.

ושיננתם לבניך

2006-11-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

On the same evening that we are commemorating the 11th anniversary of the murder of the former Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, certain haredim are carrying out acts of violence and intimidation against police, journalists and members of the public, over the holding of the annual Gay & Lesbian Pride March in Jerusalem.

It brings to mind all the times I have heard people say that the Palestinians should do something about the murderous acts carried out by their extremists. What the hell are we meant to do? Is it my civil obligation to go out and confront these dangerous criminals in the name of freedom of expression and the fundamental human right to life, family and equality? To form a militia? What have we come to? We live in a democratic state where a bunch of extremist thugs believe that they have the God-given right to throw rocks at citizens driving on the roads, assault police officers, burn tyres, and threaten to throw apples filled with razor blades, on the pretense that they don't want a bunch of people who have carried out acts prohibited in Leviticus to walk together in the streets of the city in which they live. Woe betide all of us when they decide to take up arms against those of us who violate the laws of kashrut, have extra-marital heterosexual relations, or light their stove on Shabbat.

And the police are now deliberating as to whether they will follow the order of the High Court of Justice and permit the march to take place (read, to provide it with adequate protection) or whether to postpone it again or cancel it (read, not to provide it protection). I can't believe that this is even a question. And of course, everyone's calling everyone else Nazis. To be honest, I think we may have bigger problems.

Infrequently Asked Questions

2006-11-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

From the Heathrow Airport Security FAQ :

We are transferring bone marrow and stem cells out of the country – can we carry in our hand luggage?

The Anthony Nolan Trust should be notified and they in turn should Fax the details to security.

I need to carry a liquid wig spray. Can I have this in my hand luggage?

You may if the spray has been prescribed by a doctor and your can show your prescription and this matches the pharmaceutical description of the product.

Remarkable.

Holding our Fingers

2006-10-29T08:01:00.000-08:00

My boss at work just called me to let me know that they are מחזיקים את האצבעות ("holding their fingers") for me, that I may do well in my exam tomorrow. While thanking him for the thought, I couldn't help thinking about this phrase, which I had heard previously, but never got around to writing about (and thought, unblogged, is such a fleeting thing, don't you find?).

The question is, I think, obvious - what is the relationship of the above to the phrase "crossing our fingers"? The wise web-page "Words to the Wise: Your Etymological Queries Answered" offers the far-less-certain-than-I-would-have-expected hypothesis that the latter is connected to the crucifixion of Jesus, with possible pagan precursors (cf. on both counts "touch wood" - see, for instance, this potentially unreliable resource which backs me up), which would then suggest that the Hebrew phrase is a modern spin-off with the deletion of the Christianity reference (cf. the "plus" sign used in some Israeli text-books, which is missing the "south" pointing axis, leaving it the shape of an inverted squat upper case "T").

And from here, I throw the floor open to anyone who can shed further light on the origin of the Hebrew phrase. I hope there are some interesting answers - otherwise, what a waste of a post (after all, blogspace is not cheap) ...

Some Hebrew linguistic questions

2006-10-27T16:15:00.000-07:00

Some questions for any adventurous Hebrew linguists out there:

1. Where does מו come from, as in במו עיניי ("before my very eyes")? Is it related to עצמו in any way? I would presume not, as I presume עצמו comes from עצם ("bone") even if I fail to see the semantic connection.

2. Where the hell does אדרבה ("on the contrary") come from? Sounds very Aramaic to me. Unless it's "until 4:00" ...

3. Something about למחוא כפיים ("to applaud", literally "to strike two palms") always seemed weird to me. Shouldn't למחוא by itself be enough? Can you do anything else with כפיים other than למחוא them?

4. In מלכתחילה ("from the beginning"), where the hell does the כ come from? A ה I could understand, but a כ?

I'm full of such questions. These are but a few that I have managed to spew out at this ungodly hour. While we're at it, why is it "ungodly hour" and "untimely death" and not the other way around? Okay, that's not a real question - feel free to ignore it.

Academic Honesty

2006-10-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

I have a dilemma.

A certain young gentlemen whose acquaintance I have not made other than in this virtual world of almost friends and not-quite communities, owns and operates a small web-log by the delightfully paronomastic name of "De-Lingu-ent: Latin Language Defective".

In the blog's profile, the young gentleman (who goes by the odd pseudonym of "500.50.100", and whom for convenience I shall therefore call "Five"), describes his self-assigned task as follows: "a Spartan in Rome investigates language – mediaeval and classic Latin, slang, Ecclesiastical Latin, Etruscan, Monasterish, and more - with an eye on etymology. I'm not a professional linguist, and will be using this blog to explore my own questions, and I welcome yours as well." He does not address the question of why he uses the word "defective" in the name of the blog, possibly on the assumption that we, his readers, will understand that he, being of Greek heritage, has been "tainted" by his deep interest in a language not his mother tongue.

A certain other gentleman, who calls himself merely "Phaedrus", regularly posts comments on the blog of this magnanimous host. In his comments to the blog, he not only expresses great wonderment at the etymological findings of the blog's author (which are indeed of some academic merit), but also adds certain hypotheses of his own as to connections between some of the Latin roots in question and other, quite different words, often in other languages.

For instance, where Five might construct a post about the Latin word "dat" ("he gives"), its etymological sources, its change in use over time, and its connection to other Latin words, Phaedrus might open with a compliment to his host as to the latter's enlightening insight, and follow with the tasty suggestion that perhaps the same word is somehow connected to Hebrew's "דת" ("religion") – after all, religion is something that the gods "gave" to humanity, and the similarity in pronunciation is just uncanny. Phaedrus presents his hypothesis as just something which sprang to mind, and indeed we are inclined to believe that he is merely another enthusiastic amateur throwing ideas around the intellectual ball-park.

By chance, after noticing a certain way of thinking and writing in Phaedrus' comments, a recollection itched its way to the forefront of my memory, whereby I had met colleagues of Phaedrus' (if not Phaedrus himself) in the past, and been exposed to their ideas. This had occurred back in my university days, when I had been studying linguistics, a field in which I was then (as now) keenly interested.

These colleagues were spear-heading a linguistic theorem known as "Aeneidics", under whose banner they posited that all the world's languages sprang from one original source, and that only over time did they mutate into the almost unidentifiable bastard descendants that they are today. That original language, according to this school of thought, was the proto-Latin language of Aeneas, son of the goddess, and founder of Rome. And using certain proprietary techniques, so they claim, it is still possible to see and hear the Aeneidic source in a great number of words commonly used in every modern language in existence (though due to the practicalities of research, most of the examples they have come up with to support their claim are in the Hebrew language).

On this basis, the proponents of Aeneidics would persuade the world that Venus is the one true goddess, Vergil's Aeneid is literally true (after all, in Book X, this dispersion of languages from one original source is foreseen with uncanny perspicacity: "Speak the same language … and Rome's immortal majesty remain"*), and all people of intellectual honesty and goodwill (in particular, Hebrew speakers) ought therefore to subjugate themselves to the rightful dominion of the Roman Empire.

And now to the dilemma.

Being of the opinion that:

(i) Phaedrus is a proponent of a theory, the theoreticians of which are so strongly motivated to prove their desired conclusion, that serious questions may arise as to their adherence to objective scientific method; and
(ii) Phaedrus seems not to have been heretofore open as to his membership of this club, instead posting what I consider "teasers" to lure unsuspecting amateur linguists to his way of thinking;

do I have some kind of moral obligation to unmask Phaedrus in the name of academic honesty?

If so, what does this obligation contain? To publicly connect Phaedrus with his colleagues (all it would take would be providing a link to their website)? To privately notify Five of my take on Phaedrus' intentions, by way of a friendly "heads-up"?

Or is the above approach merely arrogant and rude? Ought I respect Phaedrus' right to hold and freely purvey his opinions as any vendor in the great marketplace of ideas that is this worldwide web? A fortiori, given that Five seems also to be somewhat of a follower of the goddess of Rome? Ought I allow (or even participate in) academic debate to take on Phaedrus' arguments on their own merits, without prejudicing the forum by denigrating Phaedrus' intentions as I perceive them? Should I, in short, mind my own business?

Your suggestions would be appreciated.

* From the Project Gutenberg translation of the Aeneid.

On flossing

2006-10-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

I was advised by my dental hygienist yesterday that, amongst other ungainly activities, it would be advisable for me to take up flossing. At least four times a week, she said.

My first reaction was, where does this four times a week thing come from? Is it possible that she is using a psychological trick on me, whereby if she had said "once a week" or "every day" I wouldn't have taken her seriously, but because she came up with the unlikely, and therefore scientific-sounding "four times a week", I am more likely to treat her as the serious professional she is, and take her at her word?

My second reaction occurred only now, when I remembered to floss in a systematic manner for the first time. And that reaction was - this is a really unpleasant activity. It is like taking nose-picking (which is actually quite pleasurable) to a whole new level of pedantry, where rather than just shoving your finger in and having a good scratch of the passages, you are forced to meticulously clean nasal hair by nasal hair, every femtometre of the membranous lining, with an awkward tool unsuited to such tasks (in the way that the human finger, thanks to the miracles of evolution, unquestionably is). It is also excruciatingly boring. And I am speaking as someone with patience of steel - indeed, I once had a job where for three months I had to check that documents (128 boxes of documents, to be precise) were arranged in (seven-digit) numerical order.

I don't know how long this flossing this is going to last. I will be sure to keep you posted.

What I don't like about books

2006-10-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

When they're not good, they don't end. When they are, they do.

It's enough to give a person an abandonment complex.

If you only read one post this year ...

2006-09-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

If you only read one post this year, make it ... oh God I can't handle the pressure! No, don't make it this one! Read another one somewhere else somebody else's blog something on the other side of the world wide web it's a big web there's got to be plenty of other things that you should read just please don't make it this post I don't want the responsibility I can't handle it!

But if you've already read that post, and you want to read another one, then stop over, I'll find you something nice, do you a good deal, you my friend I like you very much I give you good price please, come sit, have cup tea and look at my extensive array of alarm clocks.

The Pumpkin

2006-09-25T16:37:00.001-07:00

Someone once told me that "tikva" in Russian means "pumpkin". This could easily not be true. But it has spurred me on to offer a not-quite translation of the Israeli national anthem, for English speakers.

Call odd ballet - fav - per knee, ma.
Neh, fish yer hoodie, homie, yah!
Elephant, hey! Miss rach - cardi, ma?
Iron lets Ian Sophia.
Odd law huffed a tick forte, nu?
Ha! Tick far, but snot? Al! Pie, Em?
Lee, Yotam, Hoff, she ... bay art, say ... nu?
Air Rhett see yon, yer roo shall lie in!

A pint-sized herring

2006-09-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well. I just created double the liability for myself by taking out a lease over a new, airy and well-located piece of the either - a new blog by the name of "Love Davka". It is a testament no less to my short concentration span as to my absolute inability to resist a pun that I now have another blog, with no real idea as to with what I will fill it (dear Eliza, dear Eliza). Because of the name, I gave it a subtitle hinting that I would fill it with all of the things that I love about Israel, in the vain desire of one day achieving one of those prestigious awards received by websites which blatantly propagandise and inform the world that Israel is a wonderful place to live, if only people would stop shooting at us.

In a sense that may be true, I guess. But I've never really felt comfortable propagandising about anything (not least because I'm not even sure if "propagandising" ought correctly to appear in a dictionary - and being in the lazy 2am frame of mind which would prefer making an internally referential comment than opening www.dictionary.com in a new window) and what's even worse, I've started learning to spell like an American. "Z"s have started popping up in all kinds of places previously inhabited by "s"s. It's quite disturbing.

My soul is tired. I find the exposure of a blog to be more than my heart can bear. Is this what is really bothering me? I can just as easily not push "Publish Post" - let this posting fall away into the realms of nothingness - or if I were to click "Save as Draft" keep it in suspended animation in the way that I do with emails that I receive from people to whom I simply do not know how to reply. It would be easy. But a part of me knows that I want to post, that I want to go public with my innermost thoughts, even if those thoughts are inane and uninteresting to anyone but ... no, really to anyone. Even I am not truly interested in my innermost thoughts - my only interest lies in keeping innermost thoughts alive and moving - like a mother of a sick child, I don't care if little Timmy is a crap human being, just so long as he's not dead. The perpetuation of some kind of inner movement is most probably what encouraged me to write in the first place.

So what's news? I always like to hear other people speak, because I always find them infinitely more interesting than I find myself. I mean, I live with myself. Twenty four hours a day. In these circumstances, I am surprised that other people like to speak about themselves so much. Don't they get bored? Don't they get sick of that friend who's always hanging around them, wherever they are they're there, whatever they're doing they're doing it right there inside them, even when they're sleeping they're there sleeping right along within their skin. Only it's the friend that's snoring, not them (maybe)? Or are people generally good friends with themselves, the kind of friends that can't get enough of each other, so much so that the person is compelled to talk to third parties about their special friend all of the time?

Maybe. Lucky people. They got cool friends. I got a guy that plays Scrabble and chess and occasionally the piano.

Should I interpret the above as meaning that I really don't like myself? Possibly. But at least I don't bug myself. You know, I pretty much let myself alone. Don't put too much pressure on myself. I should probably give myself a call sometime.

Breaking News

2006-08-26T01:27:00.000-07:00

Pluto has lost its status as a planet (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5282440.stm) in a stunning blow not only to discoverer Clyde Tombaugh but to mnemonic-makers worldwide, who now have to contend with the question of what My Very Earnest Mother Just Shows Us now. My own, personal suggestion is "My Very Earnest Mother ... Just Shut Up Now". I invite others to propose their solutions also.

The King is Dead

2006-08-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

My translation of a Chanoch Levin poem entitled "שחמט", posted on Simon Holloway's website at 7:33pm on August 14, 2006:

My son whith'r went, whith'r went my goodly son?
A pawn of black didst strike the lighter pawn
My father shan't return, shan't come my father back
An iv'ry pawn didst strike a pawn of black
Sobbing in the rooms and in the yard serene
The king continues playing with the queen

My son shan't rise again, will dwell'n eternal night
A pawn of black didst strike a pawn of white
My father lies in dark to nevermore see dawn
A pawn of white didst strike the darker pawn
Sobbing in the rooms and in the yard serene
The king continues playing with the queen

My son once in my breast, now does i'th' clouds sojourn
A pawn of black didst strike the lighter pawn
My father warm of heart, now warmth his heart does lack
An iv'ry pawn didst strike a pawn of black
Sobbing in the rooms and in the yard serene
The king continues playing with the queen

My son whith'r went, whith'r went my goodly son?
Have fallen, pawn of black, the lighter pawn
My father shan't return, shan't come my father back
Are absent, iv'ry pawn and pawn of black
Sobbing in the rooms and in the yard serene
Alone on empty board just king and queen

Avoid Inhaling Lime Dust

2006-08-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

I have a very serious question for anyone who can help me. I was reading about how to pickle cucumbers (just curious - it somehow came out of a page in Amos Oz's "A Tale of Love and Darkness" - I'm still not quite sure how) at http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC3420.htm, and came across the stern admonition:

CAUTION: Avoid inhaling lime dust while mixing the lime-water solution.

Can someone tell me what happens if you inhale lime dust while mixing a lime-water solution? Is it hazardous to your health? If so, who would have thought that preparing such a mundane (albeit tasty) accompaniment to a hearty meal of borscht and noodles could endanger hard-working people's lives so? I really think that this is one of the more urgent and pressing issues confronting our world today.

Okay, that was a joke. I don't really think.

Good night.

Red - The Blood of Angry Men

2006-08-19T12:07:00.000-07:00

I find a lot of things about life amusing. The fact that I can't think of any of them right now doesn't make them any less real.

I spend a lot of my existence wanting to be witty. I feel it adds a certain positivity to the world, without which existence would be worse for everyone. The way I see it, life is not naturally pleasurable. One must make it so.

There are people I know who get a kick out of life. They live from day to day, waking up everyone morning with a broad grin on their face about the day to come. They do stuff that makes them happy, and even when they're doing stuff that doesn't automatically contribute to their happiness, their thinking makes it so. Or they have other things, the happiness from which tides them over until the next happy-making exercise.

I want to be one of those people. In contrast, I feel that I am riding life, in a way which is generally enjoyable, occasionally scary, and once in a while offering of opportunities which make everything that little bit more interesting. But I have trouble in believing that there is some kind of overall wholeness in my life, some kind of unifying force that brings everything together so that I can say: "I live for [thing]".

I have a feeling that this is a question of personality, and that wanting to change probably can't make it so. I can probably read any number of self-help books which will tell me the opposite, but I'm also a fatalist. So I believe that not only can't I change, but that this inability to change is predestined by a higher power.

I just got back from a "chocolate party". Everyone that was to be eaten was made with chocolate. And I ate a lot of chocolate. And I realised, at some point, that I really wanted to eat something more savoury, and that the chocolate wasn't really making me feel good. Those people who tell you that you can have too much of a good thing ... with them I would disagree, as I don't believe that chocolate has ever been a really good thing for me. It is merely one of the many socially encouraged but personally repulsive habits which I have taken on in the course of my life, like smoking. It just probably won't give me cancer.

I have a morbid, unqualified, unquestioning respect for doctors. It seems to me that they have access to a body of knowledge that I am so far removed from, that I know so little about, that I am prepared to put myself in their hands based on absolutely blind faith. I am full of blind faith. I willingly throw myself and my fate into the hands of others, and give them absolute control over my destiny. I guess it's because then I can blame them if it works out wrong. Or perhaps it's just another unchangeable part of my personality, for which there is no good reason. But doctors in particular. They're just so ... medical. I should probably have studied medicine, just so that I could have faith in myself.

But instead, I studied law, for pretty much the same reasons. I wanted to know how it worked. I wanted to never again be in a situation where because I didn't know how things worked, I ended up cold, embarrassed and alone. And eventually I figured out that it's not really knowing how things worked that makes you end up neither cold, embarrassed or alone (although it helps). It is choosing not to be cold, embarrassed and alone. That's pretty much all it takes. And it all works itself out from there.

So go out there. Love one another. You know what, do whatever, I don't care. I'm passive aggressive, and proud of it.

Retiling the bathroom

2006-07-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

So I finally got off my e-ass (I like to think of it as the slow version of e-mule), and checked out some other people's blogs. And you know what I found out? Whereas in the past, the only way I would see someone else's blog was by clicking on a likely sounding "Random Blog" on the homepage of Blogspot.com (and finding out that it sounded likely because it was crap), I started looking at the blogs that my friends link to on their blogs, and so on and so on. What I realised was: (i) that it took me a few seconds to figure out how to say "and so on and so on". What came to mind was: "וכן הלאה וכן הלאה", which I think really says something about priming and neurocognition and the like; and (ii) that there are actually some blogs out there that I can really get into, and some people with genuine feelings and a lack of embarrassment about expressing them. And that's really nice. Oh, and (iii) I figured out that I've started to number things in lists like a lawyer. You know, Roman numerals. Semicolons. I burnt my finger the other day. Classic product liability case. In a sense, I'm disappointed I didn't get more injured so that I could sue the Chinese manufacturer of that quality sparkler which I lit on the stove and burst into flame. Can you get punitive damages in China? I like the idea. Punish people for being careless. In fact, I think it is worthwhile applying the idea to everyday life. Spill over a glass of water? Get a punch in the face! That'll teach you for next time. And if you don't learn, up the punishment until you do! All those shlemiels and shlimazels out there have got another think coming. Okay, I'm starting to talk like a hillbilly. I think it's time to pop my blister and let out a little blister fluid. It's been a pleasure sharing with you.
Daniel

The McDonalds Effect

2006-07-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

I was told by friends that used to work at McDonalds, that after working at McDonalds for an amount of time, they were no longer able to eat at McDonalds. This was despite the obvious financial incentives that their employer would give them to do exactly that. And the reason for it was, primarily, that they had seen the production process, and that they were therefore too disgusted to eat the final product.

I think that for a long time, this was my attitude to producing any kind of expressive art - fear that by the fact of participating in the process of writing, I would be turned off the consumption of that art - in this case reading - by the fact of having seen the inner processes of the art itself.

And this is perhaps one of the tragedies of my generation - that because processes in which, otherwise, participation would only increase the appreciation of the product, have become so degraded as to have quite the opposite effect, we are encouraged to accept and generalise this as the rule, and not as some form of demeaned and demeaning exception.

It is perhaps the fate of humanity that in every generation there must be a tragedy, however that tragedy is not defined until writers propose and argue and repropose and reargue exactly what that tragedy is. And by the time the tragedy is defined, it has most likely already changed.

There is a lot in how you define something. A leader returns after years in "exile", yearning all of that time to return to his/her homeland. What does that mean, "exile"? Does it count as exile if the person happened to leave for that period of time, for economic reasons? Because they got accepted to a university there? Because their family moved there? Does it matter? There is no formula for leadership - a leader maximises the story that is behind them into something which becomes a story with a moral, a message - a leader creates around her/himself an epic. Or maybe it's just got to do with money. Or maybe the way other people see you. But which people? Again, it probably doesn't matter.

I always wonder why people read other people's biographies and autobiographies. Perhaps it is because they are looking for the formula of that person's success, for something that they can mimic and become that person. But the whole point is that that person is that person because they did not mimic someone else - they acted as only they knew how and did, and then they told lots and lots of people how great they are for doing so, and wrote about it a book, and then sold that book for money. Potentially lots of money. And they spent that money on building up their image, and the whole thing starts again.

It probably doesn't matter.

Bartleby, the Scrivener

2006-07-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

I was just reading through a post I made a while back, entitled "Why Internet Books Will Never Succeed" (how's that for cross-promotion? okay, not so good since this is the same medium) and I realised that it could leave the gentle reader with the mistaken impression that I had not, in the end, read the short story entitled "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville. In order to correct this terrible misconception (if the reader weren't quite so gentle, I wouldn't feel quite so bad), I must point out that I did, in fact, read the story. And it was incredible.

Seriously. I highly recommend it. And I take back all I said about why people won't read internet books. Intellectual curiosity and all that. Marketplace of ideas, and its ilk. Monty Python, and its elk. In fact, I would put it up there with "Of Mice and Men" in my "top short stories of all time" list, if one were to exist. Which it does not. Sorry, Herman. But really, you started it, having a name like Herman. Hehe, Herman. You kind of had to be an author with a name like that, didn't you? Surely you couldn't have had any friends. You were probably like the kid in "The Neverending Story" - running away from the bullies and hiding in an attic somewhere and writing your books. Except that the kid in "The Neverending Story" was reading a book. Whatever. Don't contradict me, Herman.

There's a joke

2006-07-20T16:26:00.000-07:00

There's this joke that I read once, that went something like this:

"People who live in the United States think that it's dangerous living in Israel. But people who live in Israel will tell you don't be ridiculous, it's only dangerous if you live in the North. People who live in the North say relax, you're sensationalising things, it's only dangerous if you live in Nahariya, Haifa or Tiberias. People who live in Nahariya, Haifa, or Tiberias say that you've clearly been reading too much Ma'ariv, and that if you think sensibly, it's only dangerous in certain areas. The people who live in those certain areas will tell you, what, are you crazy, you can live in those areas all your life and never have any out of the ordinary happen to you, the only really dangerous area is this one street. People who live in that one street will tell you, what, you think there are really katyushot falling here? It's only at number 8 that it's dangerous. People who live at number 8 will tell you, no, not really, it's really quite okay here, it's only Apartment 6 which is a bit risky. The people living in Apartment 6 will tell you that it's only dangerous if you go out on the balcony between 10 and 12 in the morning, and particularly if you lean out over the railing beyond where the roof-line covers you and really stick your head out there ... so except for one guy who's hiding under a table somewhere, what are we all so worried about?"

The funny thing is that it's true. There is a war going on. Apparently. I know this because every so often I see the TV at work broadcasting things about the war that is going on, people every so often mention numbers of missiles that are in the tens and hundreds, some of the people I know have been called back into the army, whether on miluim or active service, and I get the occasional email asking me how it's all going what with the war and everything. And I can't help but believe that I've become so successful at cultivating the inborn human talent of setting boundaries at the borders separating what is "normal" from what is "not part of my world", that geographically, I've broken some kind of record. I mean, when I was living in Australia, those "borders of normality" were set (or at least, I thought they were set) at - the Western world and a bit more. They certainly excluded Africa and a bunch of other continental land-mass. It probably in fact excluded lots more, closer to home. But it was never really tested.

That's not so true. I did get mighty pissed off at the Australian government imprisoning people indefinitely in conditions fit for people who commit violent sex offences against children, for the "crime" of running away from people or situations that were out to kill them, purely because those people crossed an international border. And I certainly had a social conscience, even if that meant constantly feeling bad that I was quite powerless against the world. But I never really got a chance to see just how close a war could get without feeling that it affects me personally.

Don't get me wrong. The loss of human life that is occurring in vast numbers currently due to intentional acts of unpunished violence is a tragedy of immense proportions. Every time a person loses their life in this conflict, I experience emotion, but could it ever happen to me? Could I even need to be in a situation where I need to go to a bomb shelter in order to avoid a real threat of death? Unlikely. And whether it's likely or not (and it's not), I lack the feeling of fear that likelihood of death might be expected to bring.

I actually think that I'm going to live forever. Because the way I see it, death is a ceasing of being. So effectively, for as long as I have any ability to experience life, I'm going to be living. And when I'm not, my brief existence within these "life boundaries" will have never been, and there will be nothing.

What the ...? It seems that this blog can just turn on a dime from some kind of political social commentary to some kind of self-centred "let's talk about the universe for a bit" genre. I'm quite glad that I don't have readers, who could be thrown off by this kind of lax attitude to consistency in posting. In fact I feel sometimes that writing a blog is a little bit like shouting in a large empty echoing hall. It's quite cathartic, really. Like when I got my driver's license, at 16, the best part of it was not the ability to move a weighty piece of metal alloy by a process of internal combustion, but the ability to sing as loud as I could possibly want (whether to the radio or not), and be absolutely comfortable in the sense of my own privacy. I guess it says something about my desire for privacy and the feeling of its lack, at that age. But it was wicked fun.

Right

2006-07-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who wants to become a Carmelite monk. No, this is not a joke. What's funny is that I have a number of friends / family members who went into Yeshiva for a period of time, and even a few who were seriously considering becoming a Rabbi. But for me, becoming a monk takes the sacramental cake. I mean, even a priest would be within one standard deviation of the mean. A monk is really an outlier.

But why? Is it because it seems like an outdated concept, except maybe for Buddhists or other people from countries whose language I don't understand? Is it because it seems so counter to the materialism of the world I have come to know (and perhaps even to love)? Is it because you may or may not need to shave the middle bit of your head, as if premature baldness will not do a good enough job? I have no idea. But there it is. The guy's becoming a monk.

He's a very smart guy, so he'll probably end up rising through the ranks, if there is such a thing as ranks amongst Carmelite monks. He might end up as a cardinal, or the Archbishop of Sydney one day, or something, presuming that such positions take people from amongst the monks, and that he should want to. It's very possible that he doesn't want to stand out, and that's the whole reason why he got into the monking business in the first place. But perhaps that's not a fair comment. I mean, a person becoming a monk could hardly be indicted as a conformist. It's about as unconformist as you can get. And yet, perhaps it offers something of a solace that you can join a group of like-minded people and become part of a whole.

I have another friend, who I really should be returning an email to right now, who is merely submissive and paranoid. I find the guy very difficult to understand, and sometimes get the feeling that everything he says to me is somewhat disconnected from reality. Perhaps I am merely over-suspicious and should be accepting everything he says at face value. Perhaps I am the paranoid one. Just imagine, two paranoid people walk into a bar. The first one says "...", and then stops in fear of what the other one meant by that.

Is it possible that I attract strange friends? Or is it rather (as I would like to believe) that the more you get to know someone, and the more you become familiar with their peculiarities, the more you realise that normality is an illusion, and that it only exists inasmuch as people strive to be more like it? Or is it perhaps that everyone has a very different idea of what is normal, and that we are miscommunicating when we compare one another to that standard? I'm going to leave that one open.

I have a feeling sometimes that if I learn enough and gather enough experience, I will get it. I mean, all of it. It just takes a bit of effort, and then I will understand everything there is to understand, and there will be no more misunderstanding, no more awkwardness. I am beginning to believe more and more, though, that there is no such thing. That people who seem to get it are clinging on for dear life to the idea of just getting through this one problem, this one meeting, and hoping like hell that no-one asks anything really difficult, which not only do they not know, but about which they don't even know how to form the question. Mmm, prepositions which work.

I find sometimes that I'm writing something, and I want to express something, and all of a sudden, grammar gets in the way. Like, it's just impossible to actually express a certain concept, because the grammar just won't allow it, and you have to make a decision - either you can ditch the concept, or you can try to find a work-around (which sometimes there just isn't), or you can express what you wanted to express and just hope like hell that your reader puts up with the fact that you're really not clear and really not a talented author at all (not to mention a talented owner of a language-specific-programmed brain). Like "language-specific-programmed brain". I wanted to say, "a brain that is programmed in language (as a whole) in a manner which is language-specific (in particular)". But I just couldn't get it out. It may have something to do with my morbid fear of editing.

Editing. Ha. It always seemed to me so feeble, like an admission of weakness. Clearly, it is a marker of self-confidence and a contributor to strength (like saying "Practice! Ha! If I can't do it straight away, I won't do it at all!"), but some kind of emotional block inhibits me. It's because of that same block that I walk out of exams early - pretty much the minute I've finished writing my answers, tarrying perhaps for a quick skim over what I've done, and I'm out of there. Clearly I make mistakes. And clearly, there are mistakes that I wouldn't make should I have checked my work in a more careful and, overall, slow, manner. But I can't handle it. Is it arrogance? The feeling that I don't need to check and therefore I won't? Perhaps it is born of arrogance. But it has become part of my emotional make-up. And the moment I wake up, before I put on my emotional make-up, I say a little prayer for you.

And you, and you, and you.

I'm outa here.

Why Internet Books Will Never Succeed

2006-06-09T10:32:00.001-07:00

So I was checking my Gmail just before, and you know how there are those links at the top of the page? "Funny quote of the day", "Useless but oddly attractive information from Yahoo! Answers", "Random-seeming advertisement actually connected to the text of your emails using Adsense or some such technology"? Regardless, I clicked on one of them, and somehow found my way to "Bartleby.com". And I thought, "How is it, that a site whose name seems to be something to do with the Devil in Christian folk mythology (A note for the curious: Please do not assume that I know too much about Christian folk mythology - or anything else, for that matter. All I know I learned from popular culture, so if the movie "Dogma" erred on the above point, I am willing to take back the assertion) occupies itself with the publication of literature (presumably literature over which the copyright has expired, hence why there seem to be so many books which were popular in the United States in the early 1900s but not so many books that I seem to have ever read) on the Internet?" So I looked around for the "About" link or something like it, and came to a welcome message in which I was informed that the name comes from a book of the same title by Herman Melville ("Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street [sic]", to be precise). So the next question was: "Will I read this book on the Internet?"

Which is how we arrive at the topic of this post: "Why Internet Books Will Never Succeed".

First of all, I should explain why this post will never succeed, and I must say that not only does the title sound like the title of an evangelistic blogger who, in his own mind, knows everything and has finally found the medium to express that omniscience to the world, but the fact that every word in the title is a capital only serves to deepen the dagger-gash in the flesh of success, that fleeting messenger-god. Shit, I got to go a bit lighter on the drugs.

Anyway, Internet books. My main contention (really, my only reason for thinking of writing this post) is that Internet books will never succeed because they do not assist boys in picking up girls. A little bit disconnected, I hear you think, but here goes.

All my life (okay, all my life prior to being in a loving relationship with my fiancee), whenever I was in a public place reading a book, it was always my fantasy that someone of the female gender would approach me and say something like: "Wow, that's a book ... [irrelevant conversation for whatever length of time] ... Would you like to sleep with me?"

And I'm convinced that every single member of the male population of the world who has ever read a book in a public place, has done so for the exact same reason. I am unwilling to place any bets on the effectiveness of this picking-up strategy - like many picking-up strategies, I am almost certain that the low level of result far from justifies the enthusiasm with which the strategy is pursued by any given man or men as a gender - however I'm certain it exists.

And it's just impossible to do that with Internet books. Even if you could read it in public (let's say you owned one of those snazzy little "Palm Pilots" (which, by the way, always sounded to me like a euphemism for "a person who masturbates very often/very quickly")) there would be no way for anyone of the opposite gender to know that you were reading a book (and thence commence with those fateful words "Wow, that's a book ...")

Instead, they would probably think that you were just playing Donkey Kong with the beeping sounds switched off, like some little kid. And who wants that?

Why Internet Books Will Never Succeed

2006-06-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

Do you ever?

2006-05-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get the feeling, when you're driving home, and it's late at night, and you know you're tired but you're pretty sure you're awake enough to be able to make it home - that maybe, you've actually fallen asleep on the road and that you're dreaming the fact that you're driving? Now that I think of it, there are two parts to that. First, the chance that you could be dreaming that you're driving. Second, the chance that while you're doing that dreaming, you're also actually driving.

No? You don't?

Oh, me neither.

When I was young

2006-04-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

When I was young, I sometimes had the funny feeling that the life that I was living was in fact the memory of myself in that moment before you die when your life flashes before your eyes. I was quite convinced that this could be the case, and I had really no way of refuting it. I guess I had these feelings at a time in my life when I felt very controlled, like my life and actions were predetermined. The great challenge which I made to this way of thinking started when I was maybe in Year 10 at school, and I called it "acts of free will". What I would do was, whenever I had that thought (particularly if there was nobody around), I would do a little thing which I would think would be so stupid, that noone would ever do such a thing. For instance, I would hop on one leg, or say "bleubalufalu", or something to convince myself that what I was doing what I was doing out of free will and not out of preordained following. Of course, the great challenge to the great challenge was that I never knew what it was that I was predestined to do - so I had no real proof that whatever I would do, however silly, was in fact contrary to the predetermined action at that time.

I remember thinking around the same time, being the time I was going through puberty and adolescence, that I was going through puberty and adolescence. This may not seem so strange (indeed, it may seem like a truism), but what I mean by the second "puberty and adolescence" was as follows. By the time I had reached that age, I had read books that told me how pubescent/adolescent people commonly feel. And when you think about it, being an inner individualist, I always wanted to feel that I was different from everyone else. So if pubscents/adolescents commonly feel a certain way, I wanted to feel another way. But suddenly I would realise that what I had read was coming true for me - that I was indeed feeling what the books had told me I should be feeling. This gave rise to two emotions. The first was irritation. Why should I feel like everyone else? It made me really quite angry. On the other hand, it was at the same time oddly comforting - there were other people (in fact, pretty much everyone) going through exactly what I was going through. It's in some ways a nice thought to be part of a group, even if the members of that group don't consciously acknowledge that fact of others' membership.

There was another thought I had when I was young that I was unable to shake, and that was the thought that you get to do life several times. It was particularly when I was suffering with things - like going to camp, which for me wasn't fun because it accentuated my feelings of not being in a group, since it felt like everyone else was in a group - or generally feeling self-conscious. Then there was a feeling of: "All you have to do is get through this" ("this" being not just the camp but in a broader sense life itself) "and you'll be able to do it again. And in the next one, you get to be the thin" (particularly thin - that is, not the fat kid) "attractive, popular one who integrates well in groups and is admired by his peers" (okay, maybe not to that extent, but at least not to be the fat outsider). And it was really quite depressing, in hindsight, that I would sometimes count the days until I could get through (in the sense of "survive") the thing, in the thought, which I knew intellectually was false, that I would get to do it again. I guess it was the contradiction between my intellect and my emotions on this point that made it so painful. And it was really the period in which I "realised" (i.e. aligned my intellect with my emotions) that I only get to live once - this is it - that I really changed my life. It was really at that point that my outlook changed, my lifestyle changed, and my attitude to myself changed. This is not to say that it was a product of pure free will and self-control - far from it. It coincided with a period where I was away from home, had begun to lose weight through being involved in more physical activity and eating a broader variety of food - and in a sense, the change in others' attitudes towards me and the change in my attitude toward myself fed into one another and led to a positive result. I didn't know this at the time, of course. I was scared shitless at the time. Change, I think, is always scary. But particularly that one. It was jumping into the unknown. In a sense, all I really had to direct where I fell was my subconscious and luck. But I've found that generally, relying on my subconscious is remarkably useful. I mean, we generally think of our subconsciouses as being some kind of unknown quantity - something which directs us to places in conflict with where we, with our will, want ourselves to be. But one thing which happened to me during this period (and particularly in the years since then) is that I have become friends with my subconscious, and we've developed a good level of trust between us. Another new friendship of that time was between my brain and my body - my intellectual self and my physical/emotional self. It's funny - for a lot of people, physical and emotional are quite separate, but for me - having had a lot of repressed feelings about my body growing up - getting in touch with my body again was getting in touch with my feelings again, and really being able to feel again. This, for me, was a real breakthrough, and I owe a lot of it to my beautiful fiancee, Hilla. Thanks, bun.

For the fourth and last time ...

2006-04-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Dear reader,

Sometimes it can be easier to write as if you're writing a letter. This is because the writer and his or her audience have a somewhat tenuous though desparate relationship. On the one hand, the writer desperately wants to communicate with someone, and the more people the better. After all, she is choosing a written medium which is released to the masses, rather than just calling someone who cares (or doesn't). On the other hand, the reader is ambivalent. There is a great deal to be read, and it really is a buyer's market. So the reader can pick and choose as he sees fit. The author, on the other hand (that makes three hands) sometimes says things that she or he would in fact prefer that the random reader (read: potential serial killer) not read. These things include personal details of age and geographical location, as well as more sensitive details, such as the person's opinion on others and her own childhood. So we have an overall ambivalent relationship - the one desperate yet ambivalent, the other ambivalent and bored. As such, writing a letter reduces the potential risks. It fools both author and reader into the impression that there is a one-to-one conversation going on, without the downside of verbal communication that it leaves no trace for posterity (except of course with the secret government recording studios which record every telephone conversation which takes place across the world, especially those including the words "bomb" or "terrorism"). One day perhaps the CIA will release telephone conversations of the world under Freedom of Information, and Google will create a search engine which will sort results by profundity. Then all the conversations which we had and thought afterwards - bugger, I wish that one had been written down - will be restored, and those masters and mistresses of verbal unrecorded communication will truly receive the prestige they deserve - as artists, in the lasting sense.

Of course, we can break the letter format by signing off.

With love,

Daniel

Right. Down to business. Note: this is not a post-script, and despite its proximity to a piece of writing in seemingly letter format, it bears no relation to it. Except that I just created a relation by referring to it. It is impossible to escape.

I can't believe the number of things that I can't write right now. I even wondered last time I wrote in this blog whether there were things which were censored by the friendly people of the blog administration in the interests of family-friendly viewing. Though to be honest, I find censorship to be rather liberating rather than confining. I found this because, due to my fear of censorship, I self-censored. And in the end, it is incredibly easy to write the kind of words which would, in any other medium, would involve overuse of the number keys with Shift held down. And it adds rather little to the meaning of what you are writing. That is, I find that if I am able to use words such as these explicitly, it turns into the word that I use when I can't think of another word to use, which has two effects. (1) It strips the word of any impact it may have had in the first place, in a similar way to Eddie Murphy stand-up - it's funny, but the swearing doesn't add anything. (2) It provides a convenient excuse, which is really a non-excuse, because the only person you are cheating is yourself, from thinking up a word that can go in its place. And I'm not thinking here about a substitute swear-word, like "sausage" - yeah, did you see how that sausage sausage mother-sausage sausaged the sausage sausage? - I'm thinking about genuine text that has genuine sub-text (but very rarely super-text). Hey, there's an idea. The world (at least, the comic-book world) is full of super-heroes. But there is a serious paucity of sub-heroes. I'm not talking here about people who are "super" by being "sub", like a guy who has this great power to freeze people and is therefore called something trite like "SubZero". I'm talking about creating a comic book about people who notoriously underperform, who have diminished powers, who are able to fall under a building with quite a lot of steps, really, and accidentally set fires which trap people in them, and fall off things that are quite high up and hit the ground at a rate of acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s (possibly the laws of gravity could be altered in the case of the sub-hero - but in that case, would they be accelerated or decelerated?). I'm not talking about people who merely underperform in a dysfunctional and rather human-like manner, like the Simpsons - I'm talking about people who are genuinely "super" in their "sub"ness. I think it could happen.

I read a book a while ago about grammar. It was called "Eats Shoots and Leaves". So in this book, the author is saying that the grammar of the world (okay, she was just talking about English grammar, but she was talking about it with such respect that it could have been the language of the world for all she cared) was degenerating just at the same time as the internet had allowed everyone to become their own publisher (without editorial control). And she cited blogs, and email, and all kinds of other things that the modern age has permitted, as evidence. And what I think is - I'm here, writing a so-called "blog" which I genuinely do not expect ever to be read by anyone (other than a small child in a major city of China, who will accidentally stumble across the site whilst looking for porn - as 80% of the world's internet surfers do - and will close the window almost as soon as he opened it, especially when he doesn't see sufficient sexually-related swear-words appearing on the page) and the fact that it is theoretically published for the viewing of the world does not, in fact, mean that it will actually ever be a subject of reading or discussion. And let's say that not only one person (not including the small Chinese child who really doesn't like my writing style anyway) but two people were to read this blog. What would they discuss? Would the debate that arises between the two of those people actually have any influence on the future of the world? Or would it be like I find on many websites, that people have very long and in-depth discussions which are dominated (I am convinced) by 12 year olds, university professors and computer science students, and then in the end, the information is just lost into the ether? Is it even valid to call this stuff "information"? I mean, if we think about it, data without direction is not really "information". It's just data. We could bring examples of thousands of orang-utans with thousands of typewriters, but I don't think that it's even necessary. Everything around us, every drop of water and follicle of hair contains an infinity of data. Its length, its breadth, its density, its specifications, where it has been, where it is going, what its dreams are, etc etc etc. But the data, because it is not directed (maybe?) is sheer raw data which never really goes anywhere. It cannot be "information" because: (a) there is too much of it; (b) it goes unanalysed; and (c) there is really no (c).

Is it clear to everybody that, at least in English-speaking Western culture, "3" means "many"? I remember being in a linguistics class (I think) and learning about a language which didn't have numbers after 5 - 5 (or possibly 6) was considered "many". And people laughed the kind of laugh you laugh at cultures which don't make sense and are silly - hehe, silly culture. And that's okay. Because these people didn't realise that in our culutre, if you can think of three examples of something working, you can pretty much fudge you way into getting people to think that you've got way way more examples up your sleeve, you're just busting with examples, but you're only giving three just now because that's enough to prove to people that your axiom is true. While we're talking about laughing at other cultures, a scene from my life. I'm sitting in a class at university on like International (legal) Advocacy or something. Relatively bullshit course, but whatever, that's another story. So the teacher asks, "what is an example of cultural relativism". And smarty-pants don't really know what her name is sitting on the other side of the class puts up her hand and says, in a snooty voice, "female circumcision". And the whole class cheers and says hooray! Female circumcision is a terrible thing that other cultures do and it is wrong! But it's kind of not wrong because it's cultural! And I'm sitting there thinking - yeah, whatever, female circumcision is really not the point. Being snooty is the point. Because it's very easy to be torn apart by the decision of whether to condone or condemn another culture. But it's far less comfortable to genuinely consider the failings of your own culture. And I got really angry. And I wanted to say: "There's this really craaazy culture of these wacky people who, when you take a lolly from the store without the permission of the guy who's always at the store, take you to this place where you get beaten up until you say things and write your name down, and then you go to this place where a guy with a deep voice and funny hair talks to you but doesn't really talk to you, and they say that you're allowed to speak, but when you try to speak it turns out you're not allowed to speak, and then, craziest of crazies, instead of a sensible punishment like spearing or exile, they send you to this place away from your country, and put you in this room where you can't go outside, and especially they keep you away from your people and your elders who normally tell you what you should be doing, and they give you funny clothes, and they expect that they're doing you a favour. Oh, and lots of people kill themselves there. It's weird how they kill themselves when they're meant to be getting "rehabilitated" or even "punished"." It really peeved me that these things exist, and that there has never been debate in the United Nations on whether cultural relativism should permit imprisonment to be used as a form of tribal punishment or whether it should be considered cruel and unusual, or on the other hand whether cultural universalism should say no, that's wrong, even if people do it and it's part of the culture, it's wrong, it breaches human rights. But I really shouldn't be pissed off, because it's part of life that the dominant culture will enforce dominant norms and the minorities will be annoyed that they aren't the dominant culture.

White supremacists are strange. On the one hand, the idea of recognising white people as a "race" has positive aspects. It can be used to stop you from "other"ing the "other". On the other hand, the only people who are going to stop "other"ing are the academics, and it ends up being a scenario of preaching to the converted. In reality, when we start talking in terms of "race", it all just turns to shit. People seem to like killing people, and generally they will find any kind of reason to justify it (or at least, if not justify it, make it possible to do it more).

Man, how did this all turn so heavy? I guess I get tired late at night and start wanting to talk about death. Is there a connection between death and the night? I mean, yeah, they're both represented by the colour black and traditionally, death stuff happens at night, but is there a real rationale behind this? I am all for formally and democratically overturning this notion, and establishing a link instead between death and shiny hub-caps. I think the whole world would be a happier (though less shiny) place.

Right, that about does it. I'm outa here.

All the best,

Daniel

PS: Fooled you! It was a letter all along! Ah, the power of the author. Bye now.

Thinking about stuff

2006-04-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

I like to think that I spend a lot of my day thinking about stuff. I see it as a good thing. I can see how people could think that "thinking about stuff" is kinda like daydreaming, where you're just sitting there lost in your own thoughts - but for me, this is less of a fault, and more of an aim.

I want to be a guy who thinks. Not a philosopher - I think I've read enough to realise that in order to be a philosopher, you have to use words like "aetiology" and "logorrhea", and I just don't think I have the vocabulary. Just a guy who thinks. Even if I only get to have one really interesting thought a day, I would consider that an achievement.

On the other hand, I work during the day. In a law firm. So I sit there, and I exercise my brain, and sometimes I do stuff which really might be considered creative. But not think. I mean, there's a certain futile feeling that comes with thinking in order to work out how to do something that's already been defined. And that's pretty much what working in law is. Sometimes you don't immediately know what the thing is that's already been defined. So you try to find out. You try to figure out the right questions to ask of the right people, and you maybe do a bit of research or (in my case) think back to those principles you learnt or didn't learn at university, and you maybe take a few wrong turns, and then you design a solution. And you hope it works. But that's it - even if you don't know that the problem is defined, and you can fool yourself into thinking that you're taking part in the "defining" process, it's other people's lives, other people's money, other people's things, and at the end of the day, other people who are not just doing to the defining, it's other people who have already done the defining, and you only get to find out when it's too late, and all the excitement that comes with really thinking, really creating something out of nothing - it's already gone. And that's it - that's the law. Always arriving at the party when the beer bottles are lying empty on the floor, there's a half eaten taco sitting in the tzatziki, there's some guy passed out on the couch dribbling on himself, and there are like three kids sitting out the back still smoking bongs. And that's depressing. I mean, you can go out and smoke bongs with the kids, but that's kinda escapism.

So that's it - that's my life. I work during the day. Sometimes I work so hard at doing this "not-thinking" thing, that I don't have any time to think. And then I get home at night and I'm tired, and all I want to do is hang out with my fiancee and read the newspaper and maybe write on the computer, and that's nice, don't get me wrong, but there's got to be more.

I play Scrabble. On Thursday nights, I go to the Tel Aviv Scrabble Club on Shenkin St., I pay my 23 shekels, and I play three games of Scrabble. It's an incredible release. It can actually be quite stressful, but a good kind of stressful - possibly I've got the word wrong, and I'd be better off calling it "tension" or something. It's like, when I compare that kind of stressful with the stressful I get during the day at work, it's completely different. At work, I'm like I feel like I've arrived six hours late and I'm just struggling to catch up to where I should have been when I was still lying in bed recovering from the day before. It gives me this feeling inside of internal explosion - which in a sense, like internal combustion, is what keeps me going through the day. But it can't be good for me - there's got to be wear and tear. I mean, how long does your car last - 10 years? 12? The little explosions inside have got to be doing serious damage in the long term. The Scrabble feeling is different. It's a feeling of competitiveness, like wanting to be able to play the best you can, whilst still recognising that there are a bunch of people who take the game a lot more seriously than you do, and who could thrash you like a dirty-heeled shoe that they want to wear indoors with just a flick of their tiles. It's a feeling I never got from sport. Because sport, for me, was never anything but a disappointment. I was never faster than anyone, better than anyone, more agile than anyone, except in these marginal sports like table tennis which no-one ever took seriously anyway. And one day, I played a game of table tennis against another kid at school, and he beat me hands down. That hurt - the feeling that even in the sport that I was okay at, that even if I did win, it would still earn me absolutely no kudos whatsoever in the way that the kids who were good at rugby, basketball, athletics, soccer, cricket, swimming, even trampolining, got. That sucked indeed.

I played a game of tennis once, against a kid who kept on hitting the ball hard to my backhand. Now, I'd like to think that I don't have a terrible backhand. Admittedly it's not as strong as my forehand, but whose is? I'm more of a hit it with a backspin long and deep kind of guy when it comes to backhand. One handed. Two handed backhand always felt wrong to me. So this kid picks up that my backhand is weaker than my forehand in maybe the second or third game of the first set. And from that point on, he hit every single shot of the match to my backhand. I'm not kidding here, every single shot. Point after point. I even kept hitting them back, even hitting them to his backhand, and he would always run around them, and hit them back again and again and again to my backhand. And I would lose. I'd lose the point, and then the game, and then the set, and then the match. And this kid would just keep on hitting it to my backhand. And at the end of the game, this kid walks up to the net and when I'm about to shake his hand he makes some comment like: "You'd better work on that backhand". And I want to kill him. I really do. Okay, maybe not kill him, but certainly cause him a lot of pain. If possible, on his face with the pain-causing part of my body of his choice. And when I was thinking about it afterwards, I thought, "why did I want to kill this kid?" I mean, he was just playing the sport in the best way he could to win the game according to the rules as they were. And yeah, maybe I felt it wasn't fair and that he shouldn't be allowed always to hit to my backhand, and it spoiled the game for me because I couldn't have any fun with it because I felt I was just losing and losing and losing, but that's what our culture encourages. We make rules for games which can be exploited, and except for the occasional Marxist on university campuses, there's no-one saying that exploitation of the rules is wrong. In fact, we treat it as a virtue. We celebrate the fact that people push the rules, and bend the rules, and even break the rules (sometimes), and we reward them financially and in other ways, and we, as lawyers, we help them.

I thought, the other day, that there is a point in having lawyers. Because, if you think about it, most people don't have lawyers. And they're the people who keep within the boundaries of the law, more out of habit than anything else. It's not that they don't rob banks because they're afraid they'll get caught, or because they have a morality which doesn't permit them to do it, but because that's just where they stand. They're the cows who are standing in the middle of the field, and it doesn't matter if there's a hole in the fence, it's not relevant to them. It's a long way away, and they're not at all likely to even see it. Then there are the people who do use lawyers. These are the people who are always pushing the boundaries, trying to see "what will happen if I do this", trying to get around everything they possibly can, pay the least possible tax, try to get out of the agreement without getting sued, trying to avoid doing criminal things and getting caught up by the police, this kind of thing. And sometimes these cows get out of the fence, and they come in again, and they jump over, and they walk through the holes, and the government or whoever is the farmer guy who mends the fence (okay, maybe the farmer doesn't mend the fence herself, perhaps she hires some hokey kid to do it - actually, in the advertisements for telephone companies or apprenticeships or something, it's the farmer who mends with the hokey kid who ends up getting the farmer's dog as a present). And the lawyers are the ones helping those cows do what they do. But the point of this is, that it's the cows who are pushing the boundaries that keep it stable for the cows standing in the middle. That is, without the boundary cows, the middle cows wouldn't have a middle to stand in, because the fences would just keep getting brought inwards and inwards and inwards until all the cows are suffocating for lack of oxygen and grass. Which brings us back to the kids smoking bongs.

But the point is, I don't think that's right. Maybe the cows on the edge are just tolerated by the cows in the middle because the middle cows are tolerant, but getting towards the ends of their tether? Maybe this is the difference between capitalism and communism - which way you see the relationship of the cows working.

Note to the gentle reader: I am not stoned while I'm writing this. Just really really tired. I was thinking of calling this blog "random musings", but I'm almost certain someone else already used the title. Why is it that we have this self-censorship for originality? Maybe, if we weren't so bothered with being original all the time, we could relax, and actually be original, instead of being abstruse, by trying to be more original than ourselves. I find this when I'm writing stuff, sometimes it's like - "no, don't write that, that's boring and been done before and whatever, write about this - that's original" and then I'm writing about something I know nothing about, and the whole thing goes to Gehenom. I've got this theory that there's a big circle of (un)originality. Person A wants to write about Thing A, but thinks, "that's not original - I'll write about Thing B instead". Person, B, who should really be writing about thing B, decides for the same reason to write about Thing C. And this continues on and on until we get to person Z (who is not necessarily 25 people after Person B) who writes about Thing A, which is Person A's thing. And if only all 26 (or however many) of them could agree to shift one to the left, everyone would be writing about the thing they should be writing about, and there could be some real originality. I mean, what if Paul Coelho should be writing Don De Lillo, and Tom Clancy should really be writing Salman Rushdie? That would be cool then, if they already write so well and they're not even doing what they could be doing better than they're doing now.

Clearly I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. G'night.