Praha 52, or This Is A Caption Contest!

(all thanks to HouseMate Marjorie for her hard work!)(Picture 1) (Picture 2)

Use the comments feature to submit captions - winners will receive a special prize from the Czech Republic! Deadline: May 5.

Praha 51, or In Which I Make A Series of Short Lists In Lieu Of a Real Entry

Things in This Picture

1) Me.
2) A park on the Pest side of Budapest.
3) A Subway Sandwich. Which, I might add, was not my idea, but I was starving and it was the only thing around.
4) A bottle of partially carbonated water. This stuff, which looks like water and tastes like flat seltzer, should be outlawed. If I wanted bubbles, I'd buy the bloody seltzer.
5) Two very evil eyebrows. They are attempting to tell the sandwich that it is about to be destroyed in a particularly harsh manner.

Things I Bought from Tesco* Today

1) Nutritional Yeast
2) English Extra Mature Cheddar Cheese
3) Crushed Tomatoes
4) Cheese-Flavored Pretzels
5) "Natural" Peanut Butter

*Tesco: The epitome of what's going wrong with Europe. Tesco is the Wal*Mart of Europe. There is a giant one in downtown Praha, which I have avoided as much as possible. But today, when I found nutritional yeast, I broke down immensely. To find out more about nutritional yeast, click here.

Things I Am Looking Forward To in no order whatsoever)

1) Finishing final exams.
2) Free water in restaurants. Free bread, for that matter.
3) English. Everywhere.
4) Numerous people, who are too numerous to list.
5) Vermont Extra Sharp Cheddar.
6) Annie's Macaroni and Cheese.
7) Another picnic in Letna on Sunday with Jill and Heather and possibly Marjorie.
8) Attending workshops thrown by the Fabulous Apparatus Collective*
9) A chance to romp about in grassy meadows with my goofball of a partner.
10) The dinner parties that I keep mentally planning during Jewish History class.
11) The visit from my Czech-American "family", which I am anticipating with much delight.

*For more information on Fabulous Apparatus Collective, check out some of their latest compilations here and here or email fabulousapparatus at gmail dot com.

Praha 50, or Je Me Souviens

"Je me souviens" is the official motto of Quebec. It means "I remember." But I've used it to title today's entry because I wanted to talk about souvenirs.

Souvenirs make me generally uncomfortable. This could have to do with the fact that I've been receiving shotglasses from all over the world since I was about twelve (and apparently, my father thought I should start early). This could have to do with the fact that the majority of souvenirs aren't really good for anything. But mostly this has to do with the small panic I have whenever I travel about what to get everyone.

The panic usually goes like this:
1)Oh, wow look at those earrings. Those would look good on X.
2)Did I get X something yet? Oh yeah, I got her that poster. But I'd love for her to have these earrings. Is it okay to get her two souvenirs?
3)But how can I get X two souvenirs if I haven't gotten anything for her brother? And if I get her brother something, does that put me under obligation to get something for the brother's best friend?
4)And how can I even be thinking about this when I haven't found something for all the people who are much closer to me than X?

...and then I descend into a pointless waste of time worrying about whether X, Y, and Z would be eternally angry with me if I forgot to get something for their cat. And somewhere in those worries, I forget how much I love getting gifts for people - when it's just the right thing. I love the moment when I see something perfect for someone and spend the rest of the afternoon happily thinking about them.

So, I've decided to create a new souvenir policy. It's not fair, but it'll keep me sane. It goes like this: if I see something that made me think of you, and thought you would love, you'll get a souvenir. If nothing happened to catch my attention and make me think of you, you'll get all my hugs and stories. It doesn't mean I don't love you. It doesn't mean I don't miss you. It doesn't even mean I wasn't thinking about you. It means you've been spared from having to express worlds of excitement over a key chain with a little beer mug on it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I see a "Czech Me Out!" shirt that my mother would look fabulous in.

Praha 49, or, A Lark in the Park, or Gut Shabbes
(written 4/22/07)

Note: I guess I’m boring you all with my political/poetical entries, since none of you seem to have any thoughts on them. Except, of course, my mother, who thinks I’m going a bit nuts (as opposed to…?). Anyway, here’s a nice fluffy entry for you all. Shame on you if you enjoy it more than my actual thoughts/grappling. Just kidding.

Today, was, in short, a good day. I woke up, I broiled an eggplant, I put my laundry away, scrubbed the countertops and went off in search of revelry. I found it in Letna, which is either the name of a neighborhood or the name of a giant hill which overlooks much of Stare Mesto and Josefov (Old Town and the Jewish Quarter). Actually, I first found it in an excellent grocery store, with my friends Jill and Heather, at which we purchased the makings of a picnic – chocolate and wine. And bread, and cheese and all sorts of things that go along with the aforementioned picnic essentials.

We ate in a cluster of picnic tables, half in the sun, half in the shade. I, still recovering from my Budapest sunburn adventures, chose to wrap my shoulders in a flimsy scarf and prop my feet up on the sunny part of the bench. We ate, admired the spectacular view, and generally, well, reveled. There were lots of people out in the park – old people, young people, babies, clothed people, and people in various states of undress…and then there were dogs.

It’s here that I must put in a good word for Czech dogs – they are unlike American dogs in every possible way. Firstly, there are tons of them, even in the very center of the city, where I live. Secondly, I’ve never seen one on a leash. Dogs here are so well-behaved that they are actually permitted to run around free. I’ve never heard of a Czech dog running into traffic, never seen a Czech dog who wasn’t trained to come at a whistle, etc. The list goes on.

It’s also remarkable that neutering dogs isn’t all that popular here – which is startling, in some cases, having come from the US where the medical establishment castrates most domesticated animals the minute they get their hands on them. Yet despite this, I’ve never had a dog jump on me, bark at me, or try to mate with me. It just doesn’t happen! Now if only Czechs could train their dogs to poop in toilets, and not in the path of my shoes, they’d be absolutely perfect.

Anyway, there were tons of dogs running around Letna, which was great. Dogs, like babies, put me in a good mood. I had brought my 648-page reading assignment (due Monday) with me, but the sun was so warm and the dogs were so cute and the wine was so cheap…I confess, I hardly got any work done.

But, I reasoned, it’s Shabbat. G-d is clearly telling me to screw the work and go play with a dog. G-d also advised that I should take a nap in the park, preferably in the middle of someone’s Frisbee game. Oh well. G-d doesn’t know everything, I suppose. But Shabbat was one of Her better ideas, that’s for sure.

(oh, and for the benefit of my parents…don’t worry, I did the reading later)

Praha 48, or The Importance of Dialogue, Part II

Dear Sara,

On the last revision of my poem "The Grass is Always Green in Israel," you commented:

Each Jew has his/her own experience with and reaction to Israel- it's just one of those things that is known by all but has many interpretations on how it fits in our lives.

What exactly do you mean by "known by all?" What is known? Who is all? All Jews? All Ashkenazi Jews who were affected by the Holocaust?

Thank you for politely refusing the plane tickets for me. And I'm intrigued by your assertion that "[my] feelings for Israel extend beyond this specific poem." It happens that you're right, but I never really discussed it with you. And I conclude, respectfully, with a poem I wrote last year about Israel, and have recently re-worked, in light of our discourse.

The Conflict
Draft 4,

After Countee Cullen's "Heritage"

What is Israel to me?

A place from where news comes
like pieces of hot shrapnel,
or like pieces of Jaffa orange that burst juicy
in my mouth like small explosions in the
crumbling limestone buildings,
glowing golden in the "Jerusalem at Sunset"
postcard by the telephone.

Israel is the voice at the other end
"We're okay - everybody is okay".

Blue-and-white clad schoolchildren
marching down Fifth Avenue
ordered to sing loudly enough to drown out any protests.

Naomi Shemer on a record player.
Songs in Hebrew I can pronounce flawlessly, but
cannot translate.

Curly dark hair and strong faces,
sand, dry heat, the sounds of a sitar.
The view of the end of the gun barrel -
young soldiers, silhouetted against chain links,
traffic jams at checkpoints
"the demographic problem".

Sour pickles in a can,
women with their hair in scarves.

Old struggles dying hard people
dying every day, in the
streets, alleys, cafes, busses
dying behind the wall, which is 5%
of a barbed wire fence that cuts
into the innocent skin of olive trees.

What is Israel to me?
A muezzin's call, reflecting off the
dome at sunrise –
counterpoint to the harshness of a soldier's bark –
a fire
of questions, history –
my family's stories
and their racism

The yearning to go back.

oppression-occupation-Gaza-settlements
Haifa-freedom-land-of-promise
peace as a process

my head, buried in the sand
my eyes pulled open by the lashes.

What is Israel to me?

an unfulfilled prophesy,
with more swords than plows

but a reminder that hope survives
like olive trees, twisting around the barbs
and always reaching for the sun

Praha 46, or Borrowed from Tevye

On the one hand, it has turned cloudy and cold again in Praha. On the other hand, the days are longer than ever.

On the one hand, today is the Day of Silence, for which I am not speaking for an entire day to commemorate the lost voices of queer (gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender) folks. On the other hand, I am allowed to laugh. And I have.

On the one hand, I spent yesterday swimming in a swamp of Amnesty International articles about Guantanamo Bay. On the other hand, I found a new blog to read, which is full of quirky and beautiful insights.

On the one hand, I miss my various home kitchens: my mother's kitchen, the kosher kitchen, the kitchen of my house at school. On the other hand, I found nutritional yeast in Prague.

On the one hand, I found delicious, healthy nutritional yeast in Prague. On the other hand, I found it in a store/restaurant run by Christian evangelists.

On the one hand, it's less than a month until I board my 8am flight to go home. On the other hand, I am just beginning to think I like this place.

Praha 45, or Another Quick Letter

Dear Aliyah,

Thank you so much for coming! I really enjoyed your visit. I regret that you didn't see me at my best/most hospitable; you caught me right between Passover and a trip to Budapest. Still, I hope you had fun.

I enjoyed having someone to talk music with - there are no geeks here. I loved how we laughed at all the signs that advertised cliched concerts (four seasons, anyone?), and talked about music professors. Thank you for joking about Raphael with me, for being my Partner in Angst about next year's housing, and for all the music department gossip. Also, thank you for not making me take you out for Czech food. :-p

See you in September!
Love,
~D

Budapest 1, or A Very Short Letter

Dear Mammy,

Do you remember how much I loved gymnastics when I was a kid? Well, today, in the middle of a park in Budapest, I found a grown-up-sized trampoline and went jumping for fifteen minutes! It was so much fun, and I realized that I can still do flips.

The sun was so bright today, I think I burned a little. But I felt just like a rhododendron plant, spreading out and opening up to the sun. The warmth felt great. And I really like Hungarians - there's more English here than in Prague, because they all know how incredibly impossible Hungarian is.

We went to a crazy synagogue for services tonight. There was an organ, a choir, and a chazzan that could have been an opera star. I quite hated it - there was no room for me to sing! And tonight we had Shabbat dinner with some Serbians and Slovaks who are doing March of the Living. They wanted to know if our lives in the US were like the movies and TV.

Later, I will tell you more about what I learned; about Aggie, our Jewish History of Budapest guide; about the contents of the kosher grocery store, and about the spa. And I will tell you all of it, because I have given up on my camera (it's too big, takes pictures that are too blurry too slowly, and I'm always afraid of scratching it because it has no case), and because I am a writer who takes terrible pictures anyway.

Love,
~D

Praha 44, or Poem, Revised

The Grass is Always Green in Israel
Draft 3

This morning on my walk to school, I stopped to inspect a soft yellow
blur that brushed my ankle.
On the side of the three-lane highway,
a dandelion was peeking through the chain link,
like a daisy resting in a gun barrel, and I smiled.

I grinned because the sun was out for the third
day in a row, and although the noise from the traffic
drowned out the birds, I swore I could almost hear them
singing, and I put my lips together to join them in a whistle
because as far as I’ve heard,
birds never sing with words.
They’re an endless niggun,
a wordless melody to greet the rising sun.

And I may be a crazy kind of Jew,
but I thank G-d for bird nigguns
because if birds could sing words
they’d eventually offend someone,
enough to grab a shotgun,
to try and bring down every singing bird, every laughing, mocking bird
that so offended him, and normally I’d think
that’s irrational, and cruel,

but when I read your letter,
with its images of Israel painted sweeter and simpler than bird songs,
I started looking around for a shotgun.
But if I were to silence you for offending me,
I’d have to take a four-hour plane ride first,
and as that plane was landing, I’d see
the white beaches of Tel Aviv, and listen to the plane burst out in Hatikvah,
and then I’d have to put my gun down.

You see, Israel is my long-distance lover
who’s been cheating on my politics for six or seven years,
but the walk up the Carmel and the sounds of the shuk are like the flowers
and teddy bears that are almost enough
to make me forgive this country I love with so much fierceness
that its betrayals feel like the end of a rifle jabbed against my heart.

And Sara, you said the grass is always green
in Israel, that people are always proud in Israel,
heads high, backs straight, people fighting to survive
instead of going meekly to the slaughter.
But green grass in a desert
is a mirage that’s fortified by pesticides, and underneath
is the curve of the bent back
of a mother whose daughter died as collateral damage
in a battle they won’t ever call war.

And Sara, if you want
to tell me about the history of our pride, don’t forget to include
Manny Ringelblum, who hid our people’s history in milk cans
for scholars to remember. Don’t forget the Warsaw ghetto warriors,
who faced their deaths with Yiddish fight songs on their lips
in a riot that’s remembered as a battle. Don’t forget
the thousands of our generation who are discovering their Judaism
locked away inside them like persistent fireflies in a jar
as their grandparents bequeath them the long-held secret in their wills. Remember them,

along with the straight backs and strong faces
and the lives of Socialist farmers who thought
they could plant freedom in the sand, but no prophet could’ve seen
that their seeds would grow into spiraling weeds,
thorny and defensive, and impossibly snarled. Remember those roots, but

don't mistake your history
for your memories, and don't forget
that freedom isn’t real unless it applies to everyone, and don't forget
to pause and notice those who are still enslaved, and remmber
that it’s not worth it to have green grass always,
if it means you need to keep dumping pesticides, because Sara,
if I’ve learned one thing living near a busy highway
it’s how to find joy in the dandelions.

Praha 43, or The Things I Once Mentioned
(Written 4/9/07)

I’ve wanted to write this entry for a while. Occasionally, I’ll make a note in one of my entries, and then promise to write more about it later. This is the entry where I get to have some explicative fun.

1: “The only way to be a truly universal Jew is to be Orthodox, or at least able to follow an Orthodox service.

I’ve gotten a lot of flak for this one, mostly because it’s a weird and vague statement. So, allow me to clarify. In many of the places we’ve visited, particularly in Poland, the only option for Shabbat services is Orthodox services. This means that the service contains no explanation, and is primarily in Hebrew. If you’re not familiar with the standard structure of Shabbat services (Psalms, Barchu, Sh’ma, etc), you’re going to be quite lost. In most of these services, I can just barely keep up. Thus, my assertion: if you want to be able to follow a Jewish service anywhere in the world, it’s best to understand either Hebrew, Orthodox services, or both.

2: “The Holocaust memorial in Lodz. I won't write about it here, but I want to put it down so I don't forget to write about it later.

The memorial in Lodz (pronounced Wooch, in Polish, Lodzh in Yiddish) was simply, the most effective memorial I’ve ever been to. It begins on a train platform. There’s a small station-type building, which contains pamphlets and a guest book. Around the station are walls with explanatory inscriptions on them. But on the tracks, in front of the platform, are three cattle cars. One of them is open – you can walk into it, feel the rough boards, see the tiny windows, imagine a hundred people crammed in with you. Once you step out of the cattle car, you might notice that the train tracks lead into a tunnel. And you might also notice that there’s a walking path on the lefthand side of the tunnel.

If you follow the path into the tunnel, you notice one thing right away: the lights operate on sensors. You take two or three steps, and suddenly, the exact spot you’re standing on is flooded with light. Two steps more, and it’s gone out, to be replaced by a new light. On the wall, you can read and see things as you walk – documents, transport lists, a hat, a cigarette lighter, some statistics. As you walk the length of the tunnel, tracks at your side, you might notice that it’s curving slightly - this keeps it so that you feel like you’re walking alone the entire time, unable to see everyone behind you or in front of you.

The tunnel ends in a room with the names of cities etched on the wall – all of these represent cities from where Jews were deported to the Lodz ghetto. In the center of the room is a small structure that might be a symbolic fire, or fireplace. If you stand next to this “fire”, and look up, it becomes immediately becomes clear – the ceiling isn’t a real ceiling, but a chimney, sloping up to reveal a small opening to the gray sky.

The Lodz memorial was one of the later places we visited, so I was already deeply set into numbness and de-sensitivity. After visiting so much, there was no way to continue to process grief, no way to really handle it. But my brain did make a note of this particular memorial, this particular place. My memory filed it away, for some time when I could think about Poland again. And here it is.

Praha 42, Or the Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything

This is Abby and me, on the night we went to the Gay and Lesbian film fest. Abby's showing off her newly-acquired rainbow tights, and I'm struggling to lift her in a dazzling sweep, but laughing too hard for the first time in too long.

Praha 41, or Are My Hands Clean?

Today I started my short-term internship with Amnesty International Prague. I'm really excited about it, in a morbid kind of way. This semester has seen me study lots and lots of death and oppression, and the internship ties in beautifully. I get to read about Vietnam!

Right now, if you go to the library/archive section of AI's website, you can search for all the articles AI has published in the last ten years or so on any given country, like Vietnam. If you're just looking for a specific topic, like capital punishment, you can search for all the articles on that topic. However, you can't cross-search. If you want an article on capital punishment in Vietnam, you have to search through one of the two databases and pick out the relevant articles.

My internship involves creating a summarized cross-reference database. Basically, this means that once the project is completed, you will be able to search "capital punishment" and "Vietnam" and find my article - an overview of all of AI's current articles about capital punishment in Vietnam, and a guide to Vietnam's capital punishment policies complete with quotes and individual case studies.

Pretty cool, right? In any case, I'm learning a lot of really depressing information. For example, if a case is noted because a political prisoner is severely beaten by her escort on her way to the courthouse after waiting six years for her trial to begin, do I file that under "legal injustices", "prisoners of conscience", "police brutality", "prison conditions" or "torture"? Decisions, decisions.

Since I can do the work from anywhere in the world, I was even thinking that I could continue after I leave Prague - all the archives are online, and I email the documents to my supervisor anyway. Something to think about!

In other news, Abby left this morning. I waved and recited poetry under my breath to keep from crying as the cab took her away. I miss her already. We had such a wonderful time together - even the weather cooperated! We sat in the sun on Petrin, the ridge overlooking the city, drank hot chocolate with thick whipped cream at Cafe Slavia, laughed at Everything is Illuminated and stayed up late into the night talking, talking, talking. We weren't apart for more than a few hours the entire week and never really got sick of each other, or ran out of things to talk about. I'm sitting here with a postcard we wrote to Smith Hillel this morning:

I [Abby] think Dane and I have learned a lot from each other this week, particularly about perspective. I see London differently now, feeling lucky to have met people who would fit in at Smith. And I'm (Dane) definitely learning how beauitful my city can really be, especially when it's packed full of people oohing and aahing and sunshine.

A picture or two from Bliss Week (as it hereon shall be called) shall be posted rather soon. Now it's time to massively catch up on laundry and chores, and get ready as Aliyah's visit approaches, followed immediately by Budapest!

Praha 40, or Happiness, Part II

So, the updates have been a bit lax lately. This, I understand. However, I think you'll all forgive me when I tell you this: the happier I am, the less I write. It makes for less entertainment for you all, but bear with me, okay? I promise, I'll be miserable at some point soon, and will have lots of morose entries to make up for this.

To tell you about my Seders, here's an excerpt from a letter I wrote recently:

Abby and I went to a horrible seder for the first night - the rabbi made me long for Smith Hillel's rabbi, which is saying something. Also, the vegetarians (including Abby) never got fed, and we escaped before the second half of the service started. However, here's the one cool piece:

The rabbi noted that all the original "4s" of the seder (4 cups, 4 kids, 4 questions) were actually "3s." Then, when the Christians started appropriating 3 as a trinity thing, the rabbis of the time actually called a council to decide how to respond. Rather than try to fight the popularity of the trinity, they instead stuck something extra in each set. So he had us guessing what the "extra" thing was in each set of four, and debating it amongst ourselves. It was actually kind of fascinating. The most interesting one was which of the four sons was added later - take a guess as to which and why, and I'll tell you what he said.

Abby and I went home and moped intensely that night. We even missed the stress of Smith's usual seder. But on Tuesday night, we did our own seder, with some of my housemates. We used my haggadah, ate potato kugel, cucumber salad, green beans and the most awesome matzah ball soup...with special chocolate-dipped fruit for dessert!

And then there was singing. You know how important it is to look interested and to look like you're listening, even if you don't know the song? That's how it was - Abby and I and maybe one or two other people singing, and everyone else listening appreciatively. Or at least looking like it. A few of us even got up and did the Jewish Youth Group Dance to Miriam's Song and cracked up. There was so much laughing last night. More than there's been in a long, long time, maybe ever.

The afikoman part was a riot, because people got into it and ripped the house apart, and since I was the leader, I got sucked into cleaning the toilets next time it's Marjorie's turn - our only major bargaining chip.

Anyway, it was beautiful. It was actually one of the best seders I've ever had, one of the best nights I've had in Prague, and having Abby there was like a halo over all of it.

Love,
~D

Praha 39, or Poem Draft

The Grass is Always Green in Israel
rough draft

This morning on my walk to school, I paused to notice
something small. On the side of the three-lane highway,
a dandelion was crawling up the concrete barrier,
like a daisy resting in the end of a gun barrel, and I smiled.

I grinned because the sun was out for the third
day in a row, and although the noise from the traffic
drowned out the birds, I swore I could almost hear them
singing, and I put my lips together to join them in a whistle
because as far as I’ve heard,
birds never sing with words.
They’re an endless niggun,
a wordless melody to greet the rising sun.

And I may be a crazy kind of Jew,
but I think G-d for bird nigguns
because if birds could sing words
they’d eventually offend someone,
who might try to grab a shotgun,
try to bring down every singing bird, every laughing, mocking bird
that so offended him, and you might think
that’s unusual, or cruel,

but take a moment to notice that when I read your letter,
I wanted to go look for a shotgun.
But if I wanted to silence you for offending me,
I’d have to take a four-hour plane ride first,
and as that plane was landing, I’d have to see
the white beaches of Tel Aviv, and listen to the plane burst out in Hatikvah,
and then I’d have to put my gun down.

You see, Israel is my long-distance lover
who’s been cheating on my politics for six or seven years,
but the walk up the Carmel and the sounds of the shuk are like the flowers
and teddy bears that are almost enough
to make me forgive this country I love with so much hurt
it feels like the end of a rile leaving the imprint of a circle
burned onto my heart.

And Sara, you said the grass is always green
in Israel, that people are always proud in Israel,
heads high, backs straight, people fighting to survive
instead of going meekly to the slaughter.
But what does perpetually green grass mean
other than there’s pesticides beneath them,
and I ask you to trace the curve of the bent back
of a mother whose daughter died as collateral damage
in a battle they won’t ever call war; at least here, the Jews
are resting peacefully, especially the ones who fought back
against the Nazis, fought back against the Hapsburgs, fought back
because they had pride too, but you don’t know that.

You know the straight backs and strong faces
and the life of Socialist farmers who thought
they could plant freedom in the sand, but no prophet could’ve said
that their seeds would grow into spiraling weeds,
thorny and defensive, and impossibly snarled. Because Jews know
that freedom isn’t real unless it applies to everyone, and Jews know
that at least once a year you should try to think of those who are still enslaved, and Jews
should know that it’s not worth it to have green grass always,
if it means you need to keep dumping pesticides, because Sara,
if I’ve learned one thing living near a busy highway
it’s how to find joy in the dandelions.