Her name was Liz, and she scared me. I admired her too, but she scared me tons. Tons being the operative word. I had never met anyone obese before. Wildly, actively obese. Or whatever the word is that comes after 'obese.' 'Morbidly obese' is probably right, but that's not what she died from.
Liz was the most brilliant woman I'd ever met. She was wildly, actively brilliant. It was the 1970s, and she had started a women's newspaper in Detroit. And as I recall, it was wildly, actively subversive for the times. And certainly for the place.
I admired her wildly. Actively. Fearfully. I knew I'd never have the energy or inclination to be that innovative, progressive, radical, and whatever word comes after 'radical.' Libertarian is probably right. In the old sense. No one. Ever. Should impede her.
She was a powerhouse.
So this would be the moment to say "But—" and start telling you why she scared me so much. And that's what I was about to do. But. I remember more.
Her husband was a sweet and tolerant man. At peace with himself in many ways. Like someone who meditates. Not like someone who smokes too much weed. I admired him, too.
But this is all beside the point. Brilliant. Feminist. Those were the parts I admired in her.
It was the screaming, raging, and fressing that terrified me. Watching her interact with food. Watching the food fly. Watching it shoveled. Watching it fall all over her body. Watching it hit the floor.
She was a very angry woman.
And she was also by far the most interesting person I had met in my three years in Detroit.
And this, too, is prologue.
At a certain point not long after our sojourn in Detroit, she became quite ill. Terminal, in fact. Cancer.
Let me step back a few years. To pre-Detroit. To hitchhiking around Europe with my officially sanctioned, mother-vetted 'boyfriend' at the time. To Madrid. To the most beautiful store window I'd ever seen. A mannequin dressed in black, covered in an antelope cape and matching antelope knee-high boots.
Spanish boots of Spanish leather.
And me, with all my travel money in hand for the whole of my summer travels before having to return Stateside. After a year abroad. And a war. So. The year must have been 1967. I was 19 years old. There were no credit cards. There was lots of Dylan. That song had been on the first album of his I had ever heard and owned. The Times They Are a-Changing. From 1964.
You couldn't ignore an image like that. Spanish boots...
And so. I spent my small fortune on an antelope cape and matching boots of Spanish leather. And as a result, by Athens I had promptly run out of money, ended up in Constitution Square looking for a hitchhiking partner to finish my travels on the cheap. Instead, I met the 'him' who would many years later be the father of my children.
That's what those boots mean to me. And the antelope cape as well.
But y'know. You come home at last from your travels. And who the hell is gonna wear such things? An antelope cape better suited for a matador. With matching boots. A line of silver frou-frou down the sides. Gevalt. What had I been smoking?
I never wore them. Might of put them on once or twice, and taken them all right off a second or two later.
It was the first time I thought about consumerism (a word that did not yet exist). It was the first time I read about conspicuous consumption. And the weird thing is, I owned next to nothing at the time. Which made the possession of these luxuries even more ludicrous.
She wanted them. Liz, that is. The raging, fressing, ranting, brilliant feminist. She wanted to be buried in Spanish boots of Spanish leather. She wanted to be buried in an antelope cape.
And I thought, well yes. Let me bury my own indulgences with her. And never ever ever be that impulsive and consumptive ever again. A fitting tribute. A fitting farewell.
And then credit cards were invented.
Showing posts with label Mira Amiras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mira Amiras. Show all posts
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Sunday, November 9, 2014
the magic chair
Ok. I got a new chair. I've tried a whole bunch of chairs through the years. I was looking for the magic chair.
The first chair that applied for the position the tzaddik got for me at Clars auction as a surprise. He knew I was looking. He decided to act. It was about 200 years old. Intricately hand-carved, and it had an embroidered seat. Nobody would sit in it. They were all afraid. But it was great to look at. So Vladdie, our black kitty, took it upon himself to inaugurate it as kitties do. It lasted a number of years, and then it went back to Clars. Nobody appreciated it there, either.
The second chair was the Mormon chair. Hand carved, austere, and just plain awesome quarter sawn oak. Carved by a Mormon farmer in Utah about 100 years ago. I had dreamt this chair. And the next day it appeared to me in the flesh at the Alameda Flea Market, and so of course I had to bring it home. Nobody would sit in this chair either. I moved it from spot to spot for years. Until eventually it went off to auction as well. I miss it. Nice to look at.
The third chair was a bright orange Scandinavian Designs jobbie that was one of those trick chairs. It was comfortable as hell in the store, but when you got it home it crippled your lower back. So the solution, of course, was to order the matching ottoman, thinking that feet up might do the job. Uh. No.
I complained about the third chair to a good friend. I had forgotten that I'd given her my dad's 'grading chair'—a cushy chaise that he never got to use because Mrs Tzaddik had stolen it from him because it was a thing of beauty. She never sat in it either. It was there to be looked at. My friend, who was sitting in said bright orange back-breaker while I was complaining about it, said she liked it just fine, in fact quite a bit better than my dad's grading chair. I proposed we trade.
Why the bad colors in chairs? Floor models. Half price. You should see the couches. Purple. Now faded, so they embarrass my daughter less. She still thinks I should get rid of them. But hey, the dogs like 'em.
So the fourth chair to apply for the position for comfotable-chair-in-the-living-room was the tzaddik's pristine cushy Italian green chaise, same as my own old grading chair that sits across the living room. Also from Scandinavian Designs (a winner but they don't make it anymore). I now had two grading chairs virtually side by side, and they battled it out for the territory. The dogs preferred my old grading chair and had beaten it down pretty well. It was a glory of a broken in chair. I had gotten it many years before as a present to myself for getting tenure. Or full professor. Or something like that. But they duked it out and the Tzaddik's grading chair won. It was a shock to me. My beloved old grading chair had to go.
Luckily, I had a former student who was participating in our Beit Malkhut Study Group. Now in a PhD program. And she has claimed, (though I think she's being both sweet and sardonic and kind, and doesn't mean it at all) that she wants to grow up to be me. So. What better person to appreciate my old grading chair? After all, her own papers (generally turned in late or very late, but very well worth the read) were read and graded in that very chair. She accepted the wonderful old grading chair with all the pomp it deserved. And put it in storage along with her daughter's furniture.
We have ascertained that I am not good at this.
I sat down (low kitchen stool) to really analyze my chair history. I had tried chairs based on beauty alone (as I'd been raised to do). As if chairs (and everything else) were only about aesthetics. I had purchased chairs because they were so hideous they were affordable. I had tried chairs because they were gifts and you couldn't turn them away. Because they were used. Because cats had already dug into them, so nothing to worry about them. Because they reminded me of someone I loved. Hm. Beauty and comfort didn't go hand in hand. And now my spine was making its own demands.
So. What are we up to, fifth chair. Now, in the Middle East, the number five has great protective value. Against the evil eye. For good health. You know the word 'hamsa' and maybe you wear a little hamsa that looks like a hand (five fingers) around your neck or on a keychain. Or have one up as an amulet about your desk. At any rate, I now realize we had reached the fifth chair.
The magic chair.
I decided to go for the real deal. It had to be beautiful. It had to be new. The color had to be decent. And it had to be comfortable. And Stickley was having a sale. The tzaddik and the Mrs Tzaddik would be pleased in their graves. I think.
So I tried the fifth chair, a Stickley recliner. A piece of absolute beauty. And I'm not going to admit that it takes some adjustment and compromise to be truly comfortable. But it's good enough. I mean, my god, it's a Stickley. And it's not from the flea market. And it's not broken. A miracle.
So. I sat in it. I brought a tall glass of water with me to keep me put (I'm supposed to drink a ton of water. Ugh). I did not bring my iPhone or iPad. It was just me and the Stickley and the glass of water. All alone. Nobody home.
And I looked up. And I saw my living room. I saw the purple couches. The tzaddik's green grading chair. The old brass trays. The overgrown plants. The 'rescued' Moroccan armoire from the Middle Atlas Mountains. And the paintings.
I have two paintings in the living room. One over the purple couch. One over the (fake) fireplace. Over the couch is an 8' wide painting of an enormous red bull, and a person struggling to pull it in a direction it is not willing to go. Everyone I know hates the painting. It used to be kept in the red bull room (essentially, my closet) so it didn't disturb anyone. I'd wake up every morning, look at the painting, and think 'don't do that' at least for today. Just. Don't. Do. That. And I'd be set for the day. No need of coffee. But no one else seems to 'get' the red bull painting. Some of them remember Red Bull Bob, a long ago student who had painted the red bull for a class project. He went to grad school. And stopped painting.
The other painting is a poster framed by the online poster company, but it does the job. It's La Belle Rafaela, by Tamara de Lempicka. de Lempicka was walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg one afternoon, and noticed that everyone was staring in a certain direction, and so she turned. And there was Rafaela. She approached. And the glorious odalisque painting that emerged shocked even 1920s Paris.
So. I'm sitting in my Stickley both looking, and seeing as if for the first time. The Red Bull that my friends despise. And the de Lempicka they adore. Or at least don't complain about. Two such different paintings. The red bull in bright thick strokes of red and red umber oil paint. The struggling white man (painted quite literally in white) trying to move the enormous red bull. A parable of colonialism and resistance. A domination game the white man will never win. And La Belle Rafaela, stretched out in all her orgasmic glory in tender strokes of evening colors.
And there they are, right there on my living room walls. The agony and the ecstasy. The paintings are perfect together. Neighboring figures emoting in accordance with the choices that they make. Blunt and to the point. Guiding us. Before, I saw them as individual works of art. Now I contemplate them together.
The Stickley. It's a keeper.
The first chair that applied for the position the tzaddik got for me at Clars auction as a surprise. He knew I was looking. He decided to act. It was about 200 years old. Intricately hand-carved, and it had an embroidered seat. Nobody would sit in it. They were all afraid. But it was great to look at. So Vladdie, our black kitty, took it upon himself to inaugurate it as kitties do. It lasted a number of years, and then it went back to Clars. Nobody appreciated it there, either.
The second chair was the Mormon chair. Hand carved, austere, and just plain awesome quarter sawn oak. Carved by a Mormon farmer in Utah about 100 years ago. I had dreamt this chair. And the next day it appeared to me in the flesh at the Alameda Flea Market, and so of course I had to bring it home. Nobody would sit in this chair either. I moved it from spot to spot for years. Until eventually it went off to auction as well. I miss it. Nice to look at.
The third chair was a bright orange Scandinavian Designs jobbie that was one of those trick chairs. It was comfortable as hell in the store, but when you got it home it crippled your lower back. So the solution, of course, was to order the matching ottoman, thinking that feet up might do the job. Uh. No.
I complained about the third chair to a good friend. I had forgotten that I'd given her my dad's 'grading chair'—a cushy chaise that he never got to use because Mrs Tzaddik had stolen it from him because it was a thing of beauty. She never sat in it either. It was there to be looked at. My friend, who was sitting in said bright orange back-breaker while I was complaining about it, said she liked it just fine, in fact quite a bit better than my dad's grading chair. I proposed we trade.
Why the bad colors in chairs? Floor models. Half price. You should see the couches. Purple. Now faded, so they embarrass my daughter less. She still thinks I should get rid of them. But hey, the dogs like 'em.
So the fourth chair to apply for the position for comfotable-chair-in-the-living-room was the tzaddik's pristine cushy Italian green chaise, same as my own old grading chair that sits across the living room. Also from Scandinavian Designs (a winner but they don't make it anymore). I now had two grading chairs virtually side by side, and they battled it out for the territory. The dogs preferred my old grading chair and had beaten it down pretty well. It was a glory of a broken in chair. I had gotten it many years before as a present to myself for getting tenure. Or full professor. Or something like that. But they duked it out and the Tzaddik's grading chair won. It was a shock to me. My beloved old grading chair had to go.
Luckily, I had a former student who was participating in our Beit Malkhut Study Group. Now in a PhD program. And she has claimed, (though I think she's being both sweet and sardonic and kind, and doesn't mean it at all) that she wants to grow up to be me. So. What better person to appreciate my old grading chair? After all, her own papers (generally turned in late or very late, but very well worth the read) were read and graded in that very chair. She accepted the wonderful old grading chair with all the pomp it deserved. And put it in storage along with her daughter's furniture.
We have ascertained that I am not good at this.
I sat down (low kitchen stool) to really analyze my chair history. I had tried chairs based on beauty alone (as I'd been raised to do). As if chairs (and everything else) were only about aesthetics. I had purchased chairs because they were so hideous they were affordable. I had tried chairs because they were gifts and you couldn't turn them away. Because they were used. Because cats had already dug into them, so nothing to worry about them. Because they reminded me of someone I loved. Hm. Beauty and comfort didn't go hand in hand. And now my spine was making its own demands.
So. What are we up to, fifth chair. Now, in the Middle East, the number five has great protective value. Against the evil eye. For good health. You know the word 'hamsa' and maybe you wear a little hamsa that looks like a hand (five fingers) around your neck or on a keychain. Or have one up as an amulet about your desk. At any rate, I now realize we had reached the fifth chair.
The magic chair.
I decided to go for the real deal. It had to be beautiful. It had to be new. The color had to be decent. And it had to be comfortable. And Stickley was having a sale. The tzaddik and the Mrs Tzaddik would be pleased in their graves. I think.
So I tried the fifth chair, a Stickley recliner. A piece of absolute beauty. And I'm not going to admit that it takes some adjustment and compromise to be truly comfortable. But it's good enough. I mean, my god, it's a Stickley. And it's not from the flea market. And it's not broken. A miracle.
So. I sat in it. I brought a tall glass of water with me to keep me put (I'm supposed to drink a ton of water. Ugh). I did not bring my iPhone or iPad. It was just me and the Stickley and the glass of water. All alone. Nobody home.
And I looked up. And I saw my living room. I saw the purple couches. The tzaddik's green grading chair. The old brass trays. The overgrown plants. The 'rescued' Moroccan armoire from the Middle Atlas Mountains. And the paintings.
I have two paintings in the living room. One over the purple couch. One over the (fake) fireplace. Over the couch is an 8' wide painting of an enormous red bull, and a person struggling to pull it in a direction it is not willing to go. Everyone I know hates the painting. It used to be kept in the red bull room (essentially, my closet) so it didn't disturb anyone. I'd wake up every morning, look at the painting, and think 'don't do that' at least for today. Just. Don't. Do. That. And I'd be set for the day. No need of coffee. But no one else seems to 'get' the red bull painting. Some of them remember Red Bull Bob, a long ago student who had painted the red bull for a class project. He went to grad school. And stopped painting.
The other painting is a poster framed by the online poster company, but it does the job. It's La Belle Rafaela, by Tamara de Lempicka. de Lempicka was walking through the Jardin du Luxembourg one afternoon, and noticed that everyone was staring in a certain direction, and so she turned. And there was Rafaela. She approached. And the glorious odalisque painting that emerged shocked even 1920s Paris.
So. I'm sitting in my Stickley both looking, and seeing as if for the first time. The Red Bull that my friends despise. And the de Lempicka they adore. Or at least don't complain about. Two such different paintings. The red bull in bright thick strokes of red and red umber oil paint. The struggling white man (painted quite literally in white) trying to move the enormous red bull. A parable of colonialism and resistance. A domination game the white man will never win. And La Belle Rafaela, stretched out in all her orgasmic glory in tender strokes of evening colors.
And there they are, right there on my living room walls. The agony and the ecstasy. The paintings are perfect together. Neighboring figures emoting in accordance with the choices that they make. Blunt and to the point. Guiding us. Before, I saw them as individual works of art. Now I contemplate them together.
The Stickley. It's a keeper.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
malkah ascends the chariot
Someone called Malkah a mystic the other day. But I don't think so. Just because she romps around with letters of the Hebrew aleph-bet... Just because she's more comfortable in the cosmic... Just because she can't hold a pshat conversation, even about a movie like say Little Shop of Horrors (or a TV series like BSG)... Just because she sees people acting out letters of the Tetragrammaton and taking them on as archetypes... All that and more does not a mystic make.
Malkah once asked her mother, Mrs Tzaddik, what she had wanted for her when she grew up. It was a question Malkah had just never thought to ask before, but now was curious as hell. Ask it now or never. Mrs Tzaddik was not going to be long for this world.
"How could I have wanted anything for you?" Mrs Tzaddik told her, voice raised in operatic frenzy. "You took drugs in the '60s!"
Ah. And there it was. No achievement was ever going to be good enough for Mrs Tzaddik, was it? Malkah took drugs in the '60s. And actually, thereafter as well.
Malkah was calm about Mrs Tzaddik's outburst. As she was calm about just about everything. Equanimity was her primary practice.
She said, "Ma, everyone took drugs in the '60s." It was just a fact.
But Mrs Tzaddik was too steamed up in the tragedy of her own disappointment to hear it. And she didn't like facts.
I want to say "what happened in the '60s stays in the '60s" but you and I both know that's just not true. Berkeley in the '60s, and San Francisco in those days engaged a generation to see beyond the veil. And this was not just about pretty colors on the wall, or politics, or what the music really means. Malkah and her generation weren't just lying around reading Carlos Castaneda all day. They were also reading folks like Thomas Kuhn. The '60s were paradigm-shattering.
Now Malkah had been raised on storybook tales of how the Hebrew letters searched desperately for the Queen of Heaven, aka the Sabbath Bride, aka the Shekhinah, who had disappeared from the world. The letters were alive in those books when she was a child. And that didn't change. It was pure animism. She was raised with a living alphabet. Hebrew at her school was in the morning—vibrant, exciting, and alive. English was in the afternoons—dead as a door nail, just making words and nothing more. The English letters didn't run off trying to bring the Shekhinah back to Earth so that the world could be healed. They told baseball scores.
Something much later led her back to the tales of her childhood. The tales her father had told her. She needed to rethink them. Malkah discovered that these were no mere children's stories made up by imaginative children's authors. Instead, they were rooted in baudy ancient stories and serious medieval texts about the birth of God and the emergence of pre-biblical Creations. In other words, they were 'raw data,' and 'primary sources.'
And what those tales did was make Durkheim extremely dull. Durkheim, yes. But not Weber. Weber was all about charismatic figures rather than statistics.
Don't get me wrong. LSD did not make Malkah religious or anything. God forbid. No. It just made her a better academic. It made her take those mystical texts seriously—as treatises on the miracles of grammar, ancient languages, and the formation of words.
Malkah became a better academic. She had fun with the material. And then she got out there and made something of herself. And Mrs Tzaddik was confused. Proud (sometimes), but grudgingly so. You can't possibly do well if you took drugs in the '60s. Right?
So. On this election day, my vote's for Malkah's-no-mystic. She's just a product of her times. She seeks the whole above the particular. She privileges ancient tales over current events. And she loves the letters of the aleph-bet because they're still opening doors to the mysteries of Creation.
Along with Scientific American.
Malkah once asked her mother, Mrs Tzaddik, what she had wanted for her when she grew up. It was a question Malkah had just never thought to ask before, but now was curious as hell. Ask it now or never. Mrs Tzaddik was not going to be long for this world.
"How could I have wanted anything for you?" Mrs Tzaddik told her, voice raised in operatic frenzy. "You took drugs in the '60s!"
Ah. And there it was. No achievement was ever going to be good enough for Mrs Tzaddik, was it? Malkah took drugs in the '60s. And actually, thereafter as well.
Malkah was calm about Mrs Tzaddik's outburst. As she was calm about just about everything. Equanimity was her primary practice.
She said, "Ma, everyone took drugs in the '60s." It was just a fact.
But Mrs Tzaddik was too steamed up in the tragedy of her own disappointment to hear it. And she didn't like facts.
I want to say "what happened in the '60s stays in the '60s" but you and I both know that's just not true. Berkeley in the '60s, and San Francisco in those days engaged a generation to see beyond the veil. And this was not just about pretty colors on the wall, or politics, or what the music really means. Malkah and her generation weren't just lying around reading Carlos Castaneda all day. They were also reading folks like Thomas Kuhn. The '60s were paradigm-shattering.
Now Malkah had been raised on storybook tales of how the Hebrew letters searched desperately for the Queen of Heaven, aka the Sabbath Bride, aka the Shekhinah, who had disappeared from the world. The letters were alive in those books when she was a child. And that didn't change. It was pure animism. She was raised with a living alphabet. Hebrew at her school was in the morning—vibrant, exciting, and alive. English was in the afternoons—dead as a door nail, just making words and nothing more. The English letters didn't run off trying to bring the Shekhinah back to Earth so that the world could be healed. They told baseball scores.
Something much later led her back to the tales of her childhood. The tales her father had told her. She needed to rethink them. Malkah discovered that these were no mere children's stories made up by imaginative children's authors. Instead, they were rooted in baudy ancient stories and serious medieval texts about the birth of God and the emergence of pre-biblical Creations. In other words, they were 'raw data,' and 'primary sources.'
And what those tales did was make Durkheim extremely dull. Durkheim, yes. But not Weber. Weber was all about charismatic figures rather than statistics.
Don't get me wrong. LSD did not make Malkah religious or anything. God forbid. No. It just made her a better academic. It made her take those mystical texts seriously—as treatises on the miracles of grammar, ancient languages, and the formation of words.
Malkah became a better academic. She had fun with the material. And then she got out there and made something of herself. And Mrs Tzaddik was confused. Proud (sometimes), but grudgingly so. You can't possibly do well if you took drugs in the '60s. Right?
So. On this election day, my vote's for Malkah's-no-mystic. She's just a product of her times. She seeks the whole above the particular. She privileges ancient tales over current events. And she loves the letters of the aleph-bet because they're still opening doors to the mysteries of Creation.
Along with Scientific American.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
malkah's little crush on ba'al
She's not supposed to. He's not part of her tradition. Except as a traditional enemy, I suppose. He's somebody else's god. And not even the top dog at that. So. I was asked the other day what drew Malkah to Ba'al. And I suppose I should come up with something that makes it all sound reasonable.
Believe it or not, it started with the Tetragrammaton. One night, a very long time ago, Malkah discovered that everyone she cared about seemed to act out one of the letters of the Tetragrammaton.
There were Yud people. They were El people. Frequently bullies in their insistence on (white) male privilege. They had created something (as a head of a pantheon ought) but then they didn't want any more change. "I made it. Now leave it alone." Creation. Just as I put it there, and not a drop of evolution since. Yud people. Not very attractive.
There were Upper Hei people. As watery as El was fire. These folks just wallow. They gripe and moan, and nothing, just nothing, is ever quite right for them. They sulk when they're supposed to be incubating. They take a sabbatical and spend the whole time obsessing about how short it is. And then they get nothing done.
I should say right now that we all do these things. Sometimes. But El people. Fucking control freaks. And Upper Hei people. Too many anti-depressants.
And then there's Vav. Upright and slim. And tall, with his head held high. Ambitious Ba'al wanting to make a difference in the world. Baal people are fucking activists. Thwarted by the powers that be at every turn. And shadowed by the loving gaze of Upper Hei —Asherah (Athirat, if you will) at every other turn. Ba'al wants to change the world. He's the original ecologist. An agriculturalist. An inseminator. Of the earth, that is. He makes things fertile, if given half a chance. Not that El will leave him be. And, well, Ba'al's been shtupping the wife, Athirat, so yah, I guess El has kind of a reason to be pissed.
There's no reason to make such a fuss about Ba'al's peccadillos. It's in his nature to spread seed. That's what he's supposed to do. The real deal, though. No Monsanto for him.
I had a student once who burst into tears when I started talking about Ba'al. Really wailing. And shaking too. She was of African origins and was raised to believe that Ba'al was the devil himself. So. Just speaking his name gave her the willies. And hearing something positive about him —like that he was just one of the top four deities in the pre-Abrahamic pantheon of Ugarit— just was too much to bear. I might as well have been talking about Saddam Hussein (more of an El character than a Ba'al one, for sure, but you get the idea). Say something good about the devil and you've got to expect a bit of a rocky response.
In all fairness, I must say Malkah was drawn to Ba'al's sister, Anat, (the lower Hei on the Tetragrammaton)—but she didn't have a crush. No. Instead she wanted to be the fierce and loyal lady of the hunt. A natural born killer. I think Malkah didn't take that part too seriously though. She saw Anat as just incredibly competent and able to get shit done. She killed. But she didn't kill. Can you hear the difference?
So. Malkah's crush on Ba'al is a bit weird, I suppose, in that she started with YHVH and worked her way backwards in time instead of going along with the program. Back and back and back until she met Abrahams's contemporaries in the land of Cana'an. And found those top four, El, Asherah, Ba'al, and Anat had all gotten carried over into the Judaic godhead, sight unseen, having a good laugh, maybe, and blithely going about their business in the god department as if they hadn't been slaughtered by the invasion of the monotheists.
So. What's the problem with telling Malkah's secret? I think it's that almost nobody's going to believe it. But if they do, there's sure to be someone saying she took up with the devil. Or that she's gone all pagan on us. But I'd like to think that she's just gone deeper. Deeper into the history of her own tradition.
She came up for air, and there he was.
I know, I know. Alchemy makes for pretty crappy punchlines. Either that, or I'm just very bad at it.
Believe it or not, it started with the Tetragrammaton. One night, a very long time ago, Malkah discovered that everyone she cared about seemed to act out one of the letters of the Tetragrammaton.
There were Yud people. They were El people. Frequently bullies in their insistence on (white) male privilege. They had created something (as a head of a pantheon ought) but then they didn't want any more change. "I made it. Now leave it alone." Creation. Just as I put it there, and not a drop of evolution since. Yud people. Not very attractive.
There were Upper Hei people. As watery as El was fire. These folks just wallow. They gripe and moan, and nothing, just nothing, is ever quite right for them. They sulk when they're supposed to be incubating. They take a sabbatical and spend the whole time obsessing about how short it is. And then they get nothing done.
I should say right now that we all do these things. Sometimes. But El people. Fucking control freaks. And Upper Hei people. Too many anti-depressants.
And then there's Vav. Upright and slim. And tall, with his head held high. Ambitious Ba'al wanting to make a difference in the world. Baal people are fucking activists. Thwarted by the powers that be at every turn. And shadowed by the loving gaze of Upper Hei —Asherah (Athirat, if you will) at every other turn. Ba'al wants to change the world. He's the original ecologist. An agriculturalist. An inseminator. Of the earth, that is. He makes things fertile, if given half a chance. Not that El will leave him be. And, well, Ba'al's been shtupping the wife, Athirat, so yah, I guess El has kind of a reason to be pissed.
There's no reason to make such a fuss about Ba'al's peccadillos. It's in his nature to spread seed. That's what he's supposed to do. The real deal, though. No Monsanto for him.
I had a student once who burst into tears when I started talking about Ba'al. Really wailing. And shaking too. She was of African origins and was raised to believe that Ba'al was the devil himself. So. Just speaking his name gave her the willies. And hearing something positive about him —like that he was just one of the top four deities in the pre-Abrahamic pantheon of Ugarit— just was too much to bear. I might as well have been talking about Saddam Hussein (more of an El character than a Ba'al one, for sure, but you get the idea). Say something good about the devil and you've got to expect a bit of a rocky response.
In all fairness, I must say Malkah was drawn to Ba'al's sister, Anat, (the lower Hei on the Tetragrammaton)—but she didn't have a crush. No. Instead she wanted to be the fierce and loyal lady of the hunt. A natural born killer. I think Malkah didn't take that part too seriously though. She saw Anat as just incredibly competent and able to get shit done. She killed. But she didn't kill. Can you hear the difference?
So. Malkah's crush on Ba'al is a bit weird, I suppose, in that she started with YHVH and worked her way backwards in time instead of going along with the program. Back and back and back until she met Abrahams's contemporaries in the land of Cana'an. And found those top four, El, Asherah, Ba'al, and Anat had all gotten carried over into the Judaic godhead, sight unseen, having a good laugh, maybe, and blithely going about their business in the god department as if they hadn't been slaughtered by the invasion of the monotheists.
So. What's the problem with telling Malkah's secret? I think it's that almost nobody's going to believe it. But if they do, there's sure to be someone saying she took up with the devil. Or that she's gone all pagan on us. But I'd like to think that she's just gone deeper. Deeper into the history of her own tradition.
She came up for air, and there he was.
I know, I know. Alchemy makes for pretty crappy punchlines. Either that, or I'm just very bad at it.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
closure, with a side of fries
Wouldn't that be nice? A closure machine? Press a button and it (whatever it may be) doesn't hurt anymore? Or is that machine already called TV and we can sit and stare and just zone out? No pain. Or do we get our sense of peace somewhere else instead?
I've been studying the problem of 'closure' since 2009. Been wanting to put a stone on my father's grave since he died. Figuring that maybe, magically and just perhaps, if there's no stone, he's really not down there at all. He's around the corner, picking up the Sunday NYT. He's at the Flea Market, chatting with his cronies. He's in India collecting artifacts. North Africa, being handed manuscripts and swallowing secret others. He's on some grand adventure, and I'm either out there with him, or, well, not. He's nowhere to be found.
It's all a grand adventure.
But put a stone on a grave, and it's like he just can't escape out the top anymore. The matzevah is pressing down too hard. The grass is growing 'round it, roots conspire to keep him down. Granite base, bronze plaque. It reads:
I thought about what to say for all these long years—and now the deed is done. He's firmly fixed down under there. It's inescapable.
It wasn't just artifacts and manuscripts that he protected, although that's what he was known for. No, what he protected most of all was me. Seems more to the point than 'beloved father.'
And she's got closure too. I think she'd like what I finally came up with:
These are the things that made her proud. Especially the 'fighter' part. Which is the part I always thought was unnecessary. But, well, whatever.
The point being—it finally does feel like closure. It really does. And she resisted it for so long when she was alive. Or maybe it was her anger he was gone. She herself had to wait one year as well—but that's expected. Within reason. He, on the other hand, was stoneless for four years.
I could feel him hovering, exploring, looking out for Judaica in the wee unlikely corners of the world. He was still out there on the hunt and prowl. And now, it's strange, he's not. Closure. He's happily ensconced. Just wishing that I'd bring him a pastrami sandwich from Saul's, heavy on the deli mustard.
They're in there. They're down there. They're under ground. They're quiet. Too quiet! Here's me. Up here. Still wanting to do them proud. Funny, I think about that now—making them proud—I never did before. Before. When they were alive, I did as I pleased. Studied what I wanted. Specialized in the not-usness that marks my chosen profession. But well, reprise: whatever. They like what I'm up to now.
I've been studying the problem of 'closure' since 2009. Been wanting to put a stone on my father's grave since he died. Figuring that maybe, magically and just perhaps, if there's no stone, he's really not down there at all. He's around the corner, picking up the Sunday NYT. He's at the Flea Market, chatting with his cronies. He's in India collecting artifacts. North Africa, being handed manuscripts and swallowing secret others. He's on some grand adventure, and I'm either out there with him, or, well, not. He's nowhere to be found.
It's all a grand adventure.
But put a stone on a grave, and it's like he just can't escape out the top anymore. The matzevah is pressing down too hard. The grass is growing 'round it, roots conspire to keep him down. Granite base, bronze plaque. It reads:
Collector, Protector, Magnes Founder and Director
I thought about what to say for all these long years—and now the deed is done. He's firmly fixed down under there. It's inescapable.
It wasn't just artifacts and manuscripts that he protected, although that's what he was known for. No, what he protected most of all was me. Seems more to the point than 'beloved father.'
And she's got closure too. I think she'd like what I finally came up with:
Teacher, Writer, Human Rights Fighter
These are the things that made her proud. Especially the 'fighter' part. Which is the part I always thought was unnecessary. But, well, whatever.
The point being—it finally does feel like closure. It really does. And she resisted it for so long when she was alive. Or maybe it was her anger he was gone. She herself had to wait one year as well—but that's expected. Within reason. He, on the other hand, was stoneless for four years.
I could feel him hovering, exploring, looking out for Judaica in the wee unlikely corners of the world. He was still out there on the hunt and prowl. And now, it's strange, he's not. Closure. He's happily ensconced. Just wishing that I'd bring him a pastrami sandwich from Saul's, heavy on the deli mustard.
They're in there. They're down there. They're under ground. They're quiet. Too quiet! Here's me. Up here. Still wanting to do them proud. Funny, I think about that now—making them proud—I never did before. Before. When they were alive, I did as I pleased. Studied what I wanted. Specialized in the not-usness that marks my chosen profession. But well, reprise: whatever. They like what I'm up to now.
Here's the weird thing. With closure, I seem to be able to write again. Though still the words are jerky, stiff and awkward. They don't flow. Watch them stumble across the line, almost embarrassed to take their places inside these clunky sentences. Oh well. At least it's writing. One word after another. A little rusty, sure. But real live actual words!
Is that what 'closure' does? Help us stumble on.
We wake up. And stretch. Clean the blech out of our eyes. Check ourselves out: Hmm. No broken bones, although the heart still aches. Is that what closure brings: Return to the land of the doing? Have we learned something yet? Are we a better person?
If so, I mean, well, this is America: Shouldn't there be a machine (or magic pill) that could do all this mourning for us quick and dirty? Help get us to the lessons of the closure side a helluva lot faster? Skip all that grief and pain, and go directly to 'just carry on'?
Or if no machine or pill has been invented, let's use the BigMac model. After all, we like to eat more than we like to labor.
I'll have my fries dipped in mourning sensitivity, (just not too much). A sprinkle empathy and sympathy, but only just a pinch. Gobble fast, greasy, and most of all, unthinking. Fast food for the bereaved. And then, you know, just let us rest in peace.
Will that work?
Friday, October 21, 2011
a kaddish for qaddafi. of sorts.
This one is reposted from kaddish in two-part harmony, but maybe it belongs here as well, what with all the Ibn Khaldun and thoughts about current uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. Comments are welcome at either site.
I feel like I'm supposed to write a kaddish for Qaddafi. And I'm having a lot of trouble doing so. What I want to do is defend him somehow. Say that he's been maligned for decades. Tell you about the jokes Tunisians (Libya's neighbors to the the west) used to tell about Qaddafi, all the way back in the 1970's...
In those days, Tunisians used to sneak over the border 'basbor de-la-lune' into Libya to work. They'd cross over at night, their passports being nothing but the light of the full moon. Qaddafi put people to work. Even Tunisians.
In those days, Tunisians used to sneak over the border 'basbor de-la-lune' into Libya to work. They'd cross over at night, their passports being nothing but the light of the full moon. Qaddafi put people to work. Even Tunisians.
In Tebourba, people said that just working in a cafe in Libya brought home more money than anything they could do back home. And so they'd go. And they'd stay until they'd made their fortune. Two years. Five years. And then they'd come home briefly, bearing massive gifts. Sewing machines and heaters. Fancy fuzzy carpet and grandfather clocks. Electric fans and electric ovens. Even if the electricity couldn't handle it. They brought the hope of employment and wealth. And then they'd be gone again. To bring back more.
Tunisians used to joke that Qaddafi gave everyone a car and everyone a house. Every Libyan, that is. And that Libya was so rich, that when the car ran out of gas, they'd just abandon it right where it stood. Libya was that rich. It was a very Tunisian joke. Tunisia was surrounded by rich neighbors, and their humor was the worst kind of self-deprecating.
Until last year. When Tunisia led the way.
And then the neighbors followed.
So.
Qaddafi was killed today.
And the media is still making jokes about him. How ludicrous he was. The crimes he perpetrated. Remember when Reagan called Qaddafi a 'Barbarian and a rat fink'? It was headline in the SF Chronicle way back when. Today, even NPR still felt the need to joke about Qaddafi's hats, his ego, and his tent. The media has enjoyed decades of making him look clownish and stupid. A country bumpkin who ended up in power. Although, he never did hold any official title beyond 'colonel.'
My favorite Qaddafi story is when some Minister in Tunisian President Bourguiba's cabinet handed him an edict, and the first president of the republic signed it, sight unseen. Only to discover that he'd just given his country away. To Qaddafi. Under the edict, Bourguiba would stay president of the newly combined nation, and Qaddafi would head the military.
Oops.
When Bourguiba realized his mistake, the story goes, he threw the Minister in prison for a while, and went on national TV.
"I'm an old man," President Bourguiba said, "and someone took advantage of me."
Tebourbis told me this story. They loved this story.
And then Bourguiba—right there on the tube in front of his entire nation—admitted that he'd made a mistake.
He picked up the edict in his two hands, held it up for all to see, and tore it to pieces. Khalass. No more treaty.
God, that was simple.
And that was the difference between the two North African leaders.
Qaddafi tried to merge Libya with Egypt, too. And Chad, as well. It just never seemed to take.
I was once in Chad when Qaddafi was visiting N'Djemena. As we traveled south from the capital, the tribesmen were riding north to pay him homage. Thirty five years later, he still had sub-Saharan and even Tuareg allegiance, even in recent days. He desired a greater Maghrebi union. And believed that kings and royalty were anachronistic in the modern age. That the Middle East and North Africa should let go of monarchy already. For himself, no title, just rule. Seems he was more opposed to titles than despotism.
So.
Long live the revolution. That's what Qaddafi used to say.
But if the rest of the world is holding its collective breath for the blossoming democratic institutions any time soon, you can say kaddish for that one starting right now.
Yes, I know. You're sick of my invoking Ibn Khaldun. But there it is. A prediction of yet another oscillation of elites. The 'Arab Spring' may well be an upheaval against a generation of despotic rulers across the Middle East and North Africa. But expect preexisting opposition factions, parties, and leaders-in-exile (or prison) to step into power vacuum more than democratic proceedings.
But if democratic institutions somehow miraculously do flourish one day—thank this eager new generation (with their cell phones, smart phones, social networks) for finally doing what every generation before them could not manage. Keep in mind how the 'Arab Spring' started. In Tunisia. With one young man. Underemployed, and bureaucratically hampered. One young man with no future at all.
Unemployment of a plugged in hip new generation. Linked in to global scene. Aware of options and lack of options. No movement, uprising, or revolution has solved that one at all. Not anywhere. Not even here.
The next leader and government of Libya is going to have to do at least one thing that Qaddafi did. He—or she—is going to have to somehow put this next generation to work.
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