Memory at any point in one’s life is sketchy. Just ask any of our family about D#2′s “memories” of when we put the house up for sale. Or about her recipe for cream of broccoli soup, but that’s another matter completely.
But I can say at T minus 7 months to 60 that my memory is sketchier than ever for real now.
So I do remember at some point during my teenage years moving to lower case lettering exclusively. Even for some term papers, now that I’m thinking.
Okay, it was a journal that I was keeping that was part of the assignment, so that made sense. I was smart enough to follow the rules, even in the wild times that I was living when all rules were begging to be broken.
So was it reading Ferlinghetti? Was it reading e.e. cummings?
Or was it archy and mehitabel?
I recall this quandary because I came across mention of said A&H yesterday while looking up something else, which I’ll get to later, perhaps.
If you’re not familiar with archy and mehitabel, then you can look here for a bit. Now that I relook, I realize how unable I was to understand its brilliance at that age. And I have no recollection of how I came across the book, either. But I definitely loved it.
i know that i am bound
for a journey down the sound
in the midst of a refuse mound
but wotthehell wotthehell
oh i should worry and fret
death and i will coquette
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai
Okay it was probably all of the above.
You perhaps have noticed that I am using more or less proper capitalization in this post, so what am I talking about? When I write things out by hand. Like to-do lists, menus.
and journal entries.
I also still sign my name in lower case, but it’s gotten to that point that it’s illegible enough that no one would know the difference.
Not like my mother whose penmanship was flawless. Until it wasn’t.
And why did I come across this train of thought?
In honor of Mothers Day, I saw this poem in a few places wishing us a happy one. I thought it wonderfully odd for such a day, but perhaps more meaningful than other garbage trifles that get offered up.
Dust if you must but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed
Ponder the difference between want and need.
Dust if you must but there’s not much time
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb
Music to hear and books to read
Friends to cherish and life to lead.
Dust if you must but the world’s out here
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain
This day will come around again.
Dust if you must but bear in mind
Old age will come and it’s not kind
And when you go and go you must
You, yourself, will make more dust.
Supposedly a woman named Rose Milligan wrote this. I can’t find anything else about her except a few obituaries.
I will borrow freely from an old Monday Morning Memo (January 16th, to be exact), because I lovelovelove these quotes below!
This photo of Tom Grimes was taken in March, 2008, when he was emcee of Wizzo’s 50th birthday celebration in Tuscan Hall.
Tom is known around the world as President Plenipotentiary of that
famous time-wasting society, The Worthless Bastards.
Brett Feinstein of Virginia is Vice-President. He’s VP because he wastes less time than Tom but he is definitely a bigger bastard.
Here are some of Tom’s recent thoughts:
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s an action worth?”
“Art opens the door to our vast, unconscious library.”
“Written words let me dawdle. Spoken words make me dance. I prefer to dawdle.”
“What you didn’t do is what you did” (My son explaining how his dad gets in trouble.)
“Hamlet was a sniveling intellectual who babbled for most of his storied play… then he shut up, cut to the chase and cut people up. There’s a lesson to be learned there.”
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
Polonius got it right, of course, along with all kinds of truisms that he spouted, even though he tragically didn’t understand them himself.
And yet–I find myself going to that cliché to figure out how to return all the books that we have borrowed from others.
Actually, this is the problem. We have not borrowed them.
They have been lent to us. We did not initiate the request and so it becomes somewhat of a burden to return books that we didn’t request in the first place.
As I have mentioned a few times, I’m trying to scale back our stuff. (Yes, even while I do buy more; I know, adding on the irony. But this is new stuff I neeeeed. New slippers. A new coat to replace my old 20 year-old parka. New socks without holes in the toes, even after darning them a few times. Okay the jacket I didn’t need but it’s so nice!)
But the books? I don’t need high school books any more. If I want to read them, I can go to the library. And the bookshelves in the study are bending from doubling overweightedness.
So I have to return these books that people said we just have to read.
Really, we don’t. Or we haven’t. And we probably won’t.
Well, that’s not true, of course. I’ve read a few of the half-dozen. But I’m not going to get to most of them now.
I found one book that was lent to D#1 when she was interested in fashion illustration from a family who moved away at least fifteen years ago. And I have no idea where they live. What is my obligation to return that one?
But it’s the same thing for lending books. I have no idea where some of our books are. I don’t know if they’re hiding in a drawer (like I found a few of a set of humashim last year–not just one!) or they’re somewhere visiting someone else’s shelves. I know that some have migrated to some of our children’s homes because, occasionally, they have been returned. So one particular child is the usual suspect, but I’m not blaming. I have to figure out what’s missing first.
So MOTS*: don’t ask me if I’ve read a book and then lend it to me. I can’t be trusted to return it in a timely manner.
Now please excuse me while I go return the books that I took out from the public library. At least I can [usually] keep track of what I take out from there.
at the library because I was sure it was lost, I found the missing 15 animals. Where, you must be wondering? On the book shelf in the room that the kiddies were staying in, as I was cleaning things out (I already cleared out 2 boxes of books, one to dump and one to donate. Somewhere. That clears up at least two shelves. My goal is a bookcase. A tall bookcase).
It was lodged between Invisible Man and The Big Money.
This poem was posted on Facebook by MyIsrael, an organization that is well, very pro-Israel. You can look at their website, but it’s in Hebrew, so be forewarned. If you click on the English, it will take you to their Facebook page, where I began. I will translate the poem roughly, but I think you’ll quickly get the gist. It starts with a bit of an introduction.
ז’ בתמוז, 7 שנים לפטירתה של המשוררת הלאומית נעמי שמר ז”ל The 7th of Tamuz marks 7 years since the passing of the nationalist songwriter Naomi Shemer, ob”m.
שיר נשכח של המשוררת, המתאים לחברי ישראל שלי – “איש מוזר” Naomi had a poem that had been forgotten that is fitting for the organization Yisrael Sheli (My Israel), “Oddball”.
**
לפני ימים אחדים כינתה עיתונאית מסוימת את תנועת ישראל שלי בכינוי “תנועה מוזרה” – כנראה בגלל שאנו עדיין אוהבים את ארצנו ואת עמנו A few days ago, certain journalists pointed out the organization as “an odd movement”. It seems that this is because we still love our land and our people
אם להיות ציוני ואוהב את הארץ זה להיות מוזר – אז אנו גאים להיות מוזרים If to be Zionist and to love the land is to be considered odd, then we are proud of being odd.
**
.תודה לחברה למור מזרחי על שהביאה את יום פטירתה לידיעתנו Thank you to Mor Mizrachi for pointing out her yahrzeit.
**
כמה מתאים להיזכר בשיר נשכח של נעמי שמר ז”ל How fitting to remember the poem of Naomi Shemer, “Oddball.”
“איש מוזר”
מאת: נעמי שמר ז”ל
**
פגשתי איש מאוד מוזר I once met a very odd man
שהלך כמו סהרורי, who went along like a sleepwalker
מלמל לעצמו בשקט ואמר: He muttered quietly to himself and said
על משכבי בלילות אני שומע On my bed at night I hear
קול פעמון גדול מצלצל the voice of a great bell ringing
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) belongs to the People of Yisrael
ובקומי בבוקר אני חוזר ואומר And when I rise in the morning, I repeat
וכמו מתפלל like a prayer
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
והד עונה לי מן הגאיות And an echo answers me from the valleys
והזריחה בהרים היא יפה להלל And the sunlight on the mountains is unutterably beautiful
וארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל and Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
וכך בקול ענות, And with a whimper
וכך בקול ילל And with a loud howl
וכך יומם וליל- And day and night
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
והיא שייכת לו – And she (the land) belongs to them
לא כדי שיחזיק בה חיל כיבוש Not so that they will hold it by force or conquest
או חיל מצב Or garrison
היא שייכת לו כדי לבנות בה She belongs to them so that they will build her
את בית חלומותיו The house of their dreams
וכך בהקיץ ובחלום And so in waking hours and in dreams
ומדור לדור And from generation to generation
ומתוך הרגל And from force of habit
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael
איש מוזר, אמרתי. תתבייש, “Odd man”, I said, “Shame on you.”
סיסמא כל כך ישנה “Such an old idea.
הרי אתה מחוץ לתחום ומחוץ לקו You are so out of touch and out of line
ובעיקר – מחוץ לאופנה And most important, out of fashion.”
אבל האיש המוזר לא ענה לי, But the odd man did not answer me.
הוא לא ענה…He did not answer…
ואז ראיתי מסביב And I saw all around
את עשרות ואת מאות ואת האלפים The tens and hundreds and thousands of
אנשים כל כך מוזרים People just as odd
אנשים כל כך יפים People so beautiful
וקולם במקהלה גדולה And all of them a great chorus
כרעם הרחוק מתגלגל – Like distant thunder rolling
ארץ ישראל שייכת לעם ישראל Eretz Yisrael belongs to the People of Yisrael.
ואז – מיושנת ללא תקנה And so, hopelessly outdated
וסנטימנטלית ללא רחם –and relentlessly sentimental
אמרתי –I said
אנשים מוזרים – לו יהי חלקי עמכם! Odd People! Let my portion be with you!
**
Now see how someone fit the poem into a further context…
Being so inspired by this poem, I went to find out a little more about this unknown part of Shemer’s life, at least unknown to me. So I found a few articles, which I will share the appropriate parts.
‘Al Kol Eileh’ is a perfect example of how Shemer’s deceptively simple lyrics could spawn manifold interpretations. Settlers and the expansionist right adopted it as a battle hymn. They sung it defiantly in 1979, when Menachem Begin’s first Likud administration ordered bulldozers to dismantle the Sinai settlement of Yamit, in the cause of peace with Egypt. Yet in 2004 peace activists evoked its other message, of respect for nature and humanity, when they protested against Israel’s demolition of ancient Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank.
Shemer originally wrote the song to comfort her sister, Ruth, who had just lost her husband. But she did not object when settlers adopted it as their anthem, especially at Yamit. On the contrary – and to the chagrin of her left-leaning fans – Shemer backed the settlers’ umbrella group, Gush Emunim, as it grew after the 1973 war. Occasionally she even marched with them. She also wrote some controversial songs during that period; one was provocatively called ‘Ish Muzar’ (‘Oddball’) and contains the line: ‘The Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.’
In 1999 a writer to an online peace bulletin board, Ira Weiss, wrote sadly of the ‘expropriation’ of his favourite song, ‘Al Kol Eileh’. On learning of Shemer’s settler affiliations, he commented: ‘I am deeply saddened. I love that song so . . . I don’t want to let them steal it from me . . . not even with the help of its author.’
Shemer’s affiliations here raise the wider issue of why certain scions of Labour’s founding generation, descendants of the largely Ashkenazi and secular chalutzim of yore, found the settler movement so beguiling. Perhaps they saw it as a logical continuation of the ‘tower and stockade’ campaign of socialist Zionists in the 1930s. The clearest example of this ideological evolution was Moshe Shamir, a revered author from ‘the Palmach generation’, former Marxist and key figure within the left-wing Mapam party, who died two months after Shemer, on 20 August. Shamir surprised his erstwhile allies immediately after the Six Day War when he became a leader of the Land of Israel Movement. In 1979 he helped found Tehiyah, a party to the right of Likud, many of whose members were former Labourites.
Religiously Orthodox Gushniks must have felt they were enacting biblical prophesy and fulfilling divine edicts ‘in our days’; yet their zeal found resonance in what may be called the romantic Zionism of Shemer and her ilk. Such romanticism gives zest to her songs, but it also, arguably, led her to ignore the whole issue of Palestinian rights.
In the mid-1970s Shemer began to identify with the people of Gush Emunim, the national religious movement that arose after the Yom Kippur War and also earned the support of people who were considered at the time people of the labor settlements, who saw them as settlers of the land. At that time Shemer wrote songs like “Paranoid’ and “Oddball” (Ish muzar), which caused a scandal. The words of “Oddball,” for example, included the line, “The land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.”
At that time it was also held against Shemer that she wrote the line “The market square is empty” in the new verse she added to “Jerusalem of Gold,” even though the square was not indeed empty and Arabs were living there. Shemer said in response: “As long as there were no Jews there, in my eyes it was empty.”
The song “Do Not Uproot What has been Planted” (Al na ta’akor natua) became the anthem of the settlers of Yamit in Sinai in 1979. However, in an interview Shemer related that she had written the song to encourage her sister Ruth, who lost her husband. For Shemer, the evacuation of Yamit was a breaking point, and thereafter she rarely made political statements. In an interview with Haaretz four years ago, Shemer said: “At Yamit I learned that the commandment to settle the land on which I was raised was no longer valid. In settling the land there is definitely desire and passion. I am not prepared to be ashamed of this, because I grew up on the importance of settlement. But since Yamit, I feel that we have already evacuated the Golan Heights. This is the case, even though I wrote `There are the Mountains of Golan,’ and I feel terrible sadness.”
I heard a blip on TV today about January 17th being the most depressing day of the year. Hmm, that can’t be good. How in the world do they figure that out? So I spent a little while looking up what this could be about.
Supposedly, it’s not January 17th, per se, but the third Monday of January, whenever that turns out. It’s known as Blue Monday. Here’s what the great Wikipedia says about it:
Blue Monday is a name given to a date stated, as part of a publicity campaign by Sky Travel, to be the most depressing day of the year.
This date was published in a press release under the name of Cliff Arnall, at the time a tutor at the Centre for Lifelong Learning, a Further Education centre attached to Cardiff University.
According to a press release by a mental health charity[3], the formula is:
where weather=W, debt=d, time since Christmas=T, time since failing our new year’s resolutions=Q, low motivational levels=M and the feeling of a need to take action=Na. ‘D’ is not defined in the release, nor are units.
Arnall says the date was calculated by using many factors, including: weather conditions, debt level (the difference between debt accumulated and our ability to pay), time since Christmas, time since failing our new year’s resolutions, low motivational levels and feeling of a need to take action.
Of course, it’s not so simple. It’s pretty much like most of the chain emails that get sent around “for your own good”–use this cell phone number in every place to call for help, use this over the counter product to do this or that–it just boils down to “if it sounds too good to be true, then why in the world would you think it could be?”
But that’s the hook, isn’t it? We are so willing to believe. And maybe this is true or not, but if you add in a number, people are more willing to believe something is true. I read that somewhere recently; I just can’t find it now, but am I making that up or is that true? Ooh! I remember where I found it and here it is!
“Specifics are more believable than generalities.” In other words, speak to the left brain – the mind – if you will persuade. “If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants flying in the sky, people will probably believe you.” – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, novelist, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature
Now, of course, that’s literature for you, by definition anything goes. But I do think he’s on to something, don’t you?
Oh yeah, it was said this way, too, by someone perhaps more well-known than Garcia Marquez:
All this was inspired by the principle – which is quite true in itself – that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying. These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. From time immemorial, however, the Jews have known better than any others how falsehood and calumny can be exploited. Is not their very existence founded on one great lie, namely, that they are a religious community, where as in reality they are a race? And what a race! One of the greatest thinkers that mankind has produced has branded the Jews for all time with a statement which is profoundly and exactly true. Schopenhauer called the Jew “The Great Master of Lies”. Those who do not realize the truth of that statement, or do not wish to believe it, will never be able to lend a hand in helping Truth to prevail.
On purpose I’m not putting the author’s name here, but you should be able to figure it out. You better.
But I should return to my research, shouldn’t I? Well, it turns out that this fellow Cliff Arnall was hired to figure out what day is the happiest day of the year in order to sell ice cream, and while he was at it, he went for the most depressing day, too. (To sell alcohol? Uppers?) Anyway, he published his “facts” a few years ago, and the media is happy to trot out these “facts” every year since then. I don’t know where I’ve been, so it’s newly outrageous to me now. This fellow does a great job putting it all out on the table in his blog about spotting really bad science, so I’ll just quote a little bit from there.
Anyway, the one positive that can be taken away from these kind of nonsense science articles is that their regular appearence provides ample opportunities to illustrate some quick ways that you can tell something is a REALLY BAD science story. So here’s my checklist:
The story includes a “complex mathematical forumla” to work out something mundane or frivolous like the best way to drink a pint, the happiest day of the year or which celebrity has the best backside.
The story includes 1) and mentions a corporate sponsor. Corporate sponsors aren’t always a sign that a science story is rubbish but when combined with a fanciful equation this seems to be the case about 99.9% of the time.
The story appears in the ‘And finally’ or ‘In other news’ section rather than the ‘science’ section of a news source. Appearing in the science section is no guarantee the story is kosher either but when a science story is in the ‘fluff piece’ category it’s never a good sign.
And most importantly the story features one ‘Dr.’ Cliff Arnall.
Turns out he’s not even a doctor. Surprise! It’s like John Grey of the marriage planets stuff. What we’re willing to believe…
So the fact that my BIL’s birthday happens to be January 17th doesn’t mean that he is doomed to unenjoy the day. Winter is tough, but we can find reasons to celebrate without despairing, can’t we?
Every mother could write a theory about chaos, but why write it if you live it? But this is our daily chore, to live with chaos, not to beat it into submission.
I have been reading a book that someone gave ISHI. It is an advanced copy (the book isn’t going to be published until next year– a phenomenom I never knew about until now). The reason that he gave him the book was because of some learning that they have done together in Jewish texts, but the novel actually focuses on chaos theory. I haven’t finished it yet, but I’ll let you know if it keeps up as well as it has been doing so far.
The theory, of course, is further on my mind because of the passing of Benoit Mandelbroit. I did not know he was in poor health but I had just bookmarked a TED video about him on Friday, not having time to watch it with all my printer adventures. I’m posting it here for you, even though I haven’t watched it all the way through.
And then he passed away, and that made me sad. Here’s a good article that summarizes the promise and the limitations of the theory.
So then in my webtravels today, I also came across this introduction to a further theory called chaordic, which sounds so intriguing. And yet, the reasons that it sounds intriguing is because of our basic need for consistency, which leads to oversimplification and hiding things under the rug. That brings me to one of my favorite quotes ;
ROS (an anguished cry): Consistency is all I ask! GUIL(low, wry rhetoric): Give us this day our daily mask.
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Hmmm. Maybe it is all one, after all?
And so, just to top it off, I also saw this video from the Monday Morning Memo today, where good ideas come from. You can watch it and see what you think. I know it’s given me a few really good ideas to play with. So enjoy!
Yes, I was going to write about how rude it is to write in caps. Then I thought how ironic it is that today is indeed e.e. cummings’ birthday. If you want, you can read some of his great poems and also a little bit about him here. I spent a lot of my teenage years not writing with caps, a combination of influence by said cummings, ferlinghetti, and archy and mehitabel, plus a little adolescent rebellion. That’s actually how I sign my name still to this day. It’s not tied into me being a vegetarian; that happened after my attachment to the lower case.
I have a cousin who always writes her emails in CAPS. I know it’s because she doesn’t have to take the time to correct her punctuation, etc. But it’s pretty much inyourface and I could or would never bother saying anything to her about it. It’s just not worth it. I got an email from someone written in all caps just a bit ago who is pretty much the opposite of that, ironically (maybe her caps were on and she forgot). It reminded me of a very funny story that I saw the other day. New York City is spending a lot a lot of money ($27, 000,000!) to restyle their street signs. After all,
“On the Internet, writing in all caps means you are shouting,” she said. “Our new signs can quiet down, as well.”
You got to love those politicians, so in touch with reality. That clearly is going to make a difference. I love New York, but it’s not for the gentility of the people. Still, if we could transfer some of that sense and sensibility to other areas of life, well, who knows what could happen?
This is where good editing is very important. I got here from Naomi Ragen advertising her new book Miriam’s Song. It looks intriguing, so I went to the page she suggested. I found this humorous, and clearly not the right answer for what they’re going for.
Actually, it’s the opposite, isn’t it?
If, what we are striving for is that
The tenth song, says the Midrash, will be the shir chadash, the “New Song” of the ultimate redemption: a redemption that is global and absolute; a redemption that will annihilate all suffering, ignorance, jealousy, and hate from the face of the earth; a redemption of such proportions that the yearning it evokes, and the joy it brings, require a new song — a completely new musical vocabulary — to capture the voice of Creation’s ultimate striving.
and chadash, asmany of a certain camp believeis indeed forbidden, then we have a dilemma, don’t we?
I didn’t know what the words to “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me”, other than the first two lines. For that matter, I didn’t know more than that of the tune, either. But since my littlest one here has a fear of flies (but not much else, especially of heights and/or of making me crazy when he climbs on things completely out of reasonable for a two year-old), I figured we’d sing the song together. So I looked for the words:
Shoo, fly, don’t bother me,
Shoo, fly, don’t bother me,
Shoo, fly, don’t bother me,
For I belong to somebody.
I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star,
I feel, I feel, I feel like a morning star.
Oh, shoo, fly, don’t bother me,
Shoo, fly, don’t bother me,
Shoo, fly, don’t bother me,
For I belong to somebody.
That doesn’t make much sense now, does it? I thought at first that was lovely; we’re introducing imagery to the little ones, but it didn’t sound just right, sort of like the “Ring around the rosies” thing. So let’s continue with the reality, shall we?
I’ll let you find out what the original words were according to Wikipedia here.
Of course, I should provide you with the tune–you can hear it here. Why it is there, you have to figure out on your own, since I have absolutely no idea.
![\frac{[W + (D-d)] \times T^Q}{M \times N_a}](http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/1/d/a/1da90efee88e1a738833621cba3b84ff.png)
