“Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing…memory. While Gentiles experience and process the world through the traditional senses, and use memory only as a second-order means of interpreting events, for Jews memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver glimmer, or the taste of the blood it pulls from the finger.
The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks – when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather’s fingers fell asleep while stroking his great-grandfather’s damp forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain – that the Jew is able to know why it hurts.
When a Jew encounters a pin, he asks: What does it remember like?”
~ Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated (p. 198.)
2/15/2010
Seattle 95 or, File Under: Things To Remember
2/11/2010
Seattle 95, or Poem-a-day project #41
Found poem pantoum - 3 bus tunnel guards watch brutal beating in Westlake Station
3 Seattle bus tunnel guards watch brutal beating in Westlake Station
She thought the men would protect her.
The group followed her from a nearby department store,
and she deliberately stood next to the three guards.
The guards have standing orders to "observe and report."
The group followed her from a nearby department store.
They said she had "nice things" and that she acts "white."
The guards have standing orders to "observe and report."
The victim lost consciousness during the attack.
They said she had "nice things" and that she acts "white."
The police refused to escort her to the bus tunnel.
The victim lost consciousness during the attack.
The police didn't know. The tunnel is just below the department store.
The police refused to escort her to the bus tunnel.
They provided the victim with an opportunity to leave the area via bus.
The police didn't know. The tunnel is just below the department store.
The victim was not hospitalized. she has a potentially fatal heart condition.
They provided the victim with an opportunity to leave the area via bus.
She deliberately stood next to the three guards.
The victim was not hospitalized. she has a potentially fatal heart condition.
She thought the men would protect her.
3 Seattle bus tunnel guards watch brutal beating in Westlake Station
She thought the men would protect her.
The group followed her from a nearby department store,
and she deliberately stood next to the three guards.
The guards have standing orders to "observe and report."
The group followed her from a nearby department store.
They said she had "nice things" and that she acts "white."
The guards have standing orders to "observe and report."
The victim lost consciousness during the attack.
They said she had "nice things" and that she acts "white."
The police refused to escort her to the bus tunnel.
The victim lost consciousness during the attack.
The police didn't know. The tunnel is just below the department store.
The police refused to escort her to the bus tunnel.
They provided the victim with an opportunity to leave the area via bus.
The police didn't know. The tunnel is just below the department store.
The victim was not hospitalized. she has a potentially fatal heart condition.
They provided the victim with an opportunity to leave the area via bus.
She deliberately stood next to the three guards.
The victim was not hospitalized. she has a potentially fatal heart condition.
She thought the men would protect her.
2/10/2010
Seattle 94, or Another Exerpt from My Foray into Short Stories
Wantastiquet College boasted a student population of just under a thousand; there were about thirty Jews on campus, according to the yearly demographics survey. Rachel and the others who worked in the kitchen guessed there were probably fifteen to twenty others, who hadn’t checked off the box, or were too secular to consider the “religion” section. The kitchen had been founded some years earlier, as a compromise – the college wouldn’t pay for a campus rabbi, but they’d create a Jewish space on campus, and pay a few student workers to run it. For Rachel, Sasha and Avigail, this was heaven’s version of work-study.
“After all,” Avigail had explained in her light Israeli accent, “somebody offered to pay me what I’d do anyway, for my friends. How could I say no?”
Jenny and Rachel developed a rhythm as they worked. As soon as Rachel tipped a panful of cooked onions into the bathtub-sized chafing dish, Jenny was on hand and ready with a bowlful of raw ones to replace them. Rachel sang and talked to the onions as she stirred them, occasionally breaking into a familiar tune.
“Oh I wish I were an Oscar-Meyer weiner,” she sang, shaking a pan in each hand. Jenny cracked up.
“Treyf! Treyf! Oscar-Meyer has breached the perimeter and no heksher is safe!”
“Oh yeah? Guess your mom had better watch out, then!” Rachel crowed. Jenny groaned. “Your mom” jokes were staple kitchen banter, but Jenny didn’t see the appeal. Half the time, they didn’t even make sense. She picked up the empty soap bottle and squeezed it under her left eye. It worked; the single tear rolled away, and her eye stopped burning. She slid a pace to her right and turned on the battered and flour-dusted CD player to avoid further mom jokes. Avigail made crazy mixes on Thursday nights and left them for the Friday morning volunteers. Today’s first song was Prince: I wanna be your lover, quickly followed by an old-timey sounding group Jenny had never heard of. Rachel sang along.
“Now won’t you tell it to me
Tell it to me
Drink the corn liquor let the cocaine be
Cocaine’s gonna kill my honey dead”
“Isn’t it awesome?” Rachel yelled. Jenny laughed.
“Who are these guys?” she shouted back.
“They’re called Old Crow Medicine Show. I introduced them to Avigail sophomore year. She must’ve known I’d be here this morning to hear it.” Jenny raised her eyebrows and shook her head in the universal sign for okaaay…weirdo. Rachel caught her and laughed.
“When I was on onion duty, I had no idea why I stayed. Here I was, up to my elbows in snot and onion gas, with weird music and crazy chicks who seemed to speak more in in-jokes than in English. But I stayed – ”here, she threw her hands up, flinging a bit of onion from end of her spatula – “who knows why? But I’m glad I did.”
1/29/2010
Seattle 93, or A Very Literary Evening
The idea began one night at the kibbutz. I don't remember what we were talking about, or what we were all doing there - watching an episode of Northern Exposure on DVD? Hanging out post-Yiddish class? Sitting around on our laptops, doing work? It could've been any of those things, but Debs began talking about an idea for a potluck party.
Debs, I should mention, has been doing a lot of procrasti-cooking lately. This is what happens when your thesis is due in a week. Debs has come up with more delicious creations in the last month than I've come up with in the last year. She's permanently corrupted my arteries by bringing her friends Butter and Heavy Cream into the world of mushrooms and kale. Every time she cooks something delicious, I propose that we get married. It's gotten to the point where she gets insulted if I *don't* ask her to marry me.
Debs's idea was simple: everyone brings a dish inspired by a piece of literature. In addition to the dish, one must also bring the book, poem, or passage that mentions the dish. I squealed, and immediately started coming up with ideas.
Two days later, I got the invitation. This morning, I figured out what to make.
The summer before college, I read Crescent, by Diana Abu-Jaber. The novel is first and foremost a love story, but it's partially set in an Iranian cafe in Los Angeles. The scenes in the cafe's kitchen (the protagonist is the chef) are rich, colorful, often downright sensual. I finished the book in a couple of days. After I read the last pages, I hugged it (as I often do, with especially good books), put it down, and walked into the kitchen.
I haven't left since. Those who know me as a cook often assume my culinary education began in toddlerhood, as my mother passed secret recipes down from some ancient oral tradition while I peeled potatoes. In reality, my mother's and my cooking aren't much alike. Sure, we both like good food, but our palates differ. She's all earth - nuts, stewed fruit with meat, pecan pie and roasted beets. I'm more about richness and vinegar, the contrast between cheese and pickles, tough greens cooked in butter, cucumber salad brined in rice vinegar and soy sauce, macaroni and cheese with caramelized onions and smoked paprika. This is because I only started cooking right before I left home. Most of what I've learned from my mother has been things I've asked since I left.
Despite all of that, I ended up bringing as simple and earthy a dish to the potluck as I could possibly make - mjeddrah, a simple, peasant dish of lentils, onions and rice. A little butter, a little cumin, a little bouillon to give it some oomph, a quick side of cucumbers, mint and yogurt. I packaged it up with an excerpt from the book and brought it to Deb's house.
Some dishes that appeared at the party:
Lentils with fried onions from Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies (there were actually two of this dish!)
Cupcakes from Laura Numeroff's If You Give A Cat a Cupcake
Wine, cheese, bread and candy from Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums
Pomegranates from the myth of Persephone and Demeter
A rich meat and potato stew from J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Sweet potatoes from Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man
Cheese sandwiches from Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman
Madelines from Proust's Remembrance of Things Past
Sour pickles, Strawberry Jam and Frankfurters from Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth
Delightful, no? We ate, and ate, and when we could eat no more, we read the passages we'd brought to one another. When I left, around midnight, I felt the best kinds of full.
Debs, I should mention, has been doing a lot of procrasti-cooking lately. This is what happens when your thesis is due in a week. Debs has come up with more delicious creations in the last month than I've come up with in the last year. She's permanently corrupted my arteries by bringing her friends Butter and Heavy Cream into the world of mushrooms and kale. Every time she cooks something delicious, I propose that we get married. It's gotten to the point where she gets insulted if I *don't* ask her to marry me.
Debs's idea was simple: everyone brings a dish inspired by a piece of literature. In addition to the dish, one must also bring the book, poem, or passage that mentions the dish. I squealed, and immediately started coming up with ideas.
Two days later, I got the invitation. This morning, I figured out what to make.
The summer before college, I read Crescent, by Diana Abu-Jaber. The novel is first and foremost a love story, but it's partially set in an Iranian cafe in Los Angeles. The scenes in the cafe's kitchen (the protagonist is the chef) are rich, colorful, often downright sensual. I finished the book in a couple of days. After I read the last pages, I hugged it (as I often do, with especially good books), put it down, and walked into the kitchen.
I haven't left since. Those who know me as a cook often assume my culinary education began in toddlerhood, as my mother passed secret recipes down from some ancient oral tradition while I peeled potatoes. In reality, my mother's and my cooking aren't much alike. Sure, we both like good food, but our palates differ. She's all earth - nuts, stewed fruit with meat, pecan pie and roasted beets. I'm more about richness and vinegar, the contrast between cheese and pickles, tough greens cooked in butter, cucumber salad brined in rice vinegar and soy sauce, macaroni and cheese with caramelized onions and smoked paprika. This is because I only started cooking right before I left home. Most of what I've learned from my mother has been things I've asked since I left.
Despite all of that, I ended up bringing as simple and earthy a dish to the potluck as I could possibly make - mjeddrah, a simple, peasant dish of lentils, onions and rice. A little butter, a little cumin, a little bouillon to give it some oomph, a quick side of cucumbers, mint and yogurt. I packaged it up with an excerpt from the book and brought it to Deb's house.
Some dishes that appeared at the party:
Lentils with fried onions from Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies (there were actually two of this dish!)
Cupcakes from Laura Numeroff's If You Give A Cat a Cupcake
Wine, cheese, bread and candy from Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums
Pomegranates from the myth of Persephone and Demeter
A rich meat and potato stew from J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Sweet potatoes from Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man
Cheese sandwiches from Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman
Madelines from Proust's Remembrance of Things Past
Sour pickles, Strawberry Jam and Frankfurters from Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth
Delightful, no? We ate, and ate, and when we could eat no more, we read the passages we'd brought to one another. When I left, around midnight, I felt the best kinds of full.
1/23/2010
Seattle 92, or The Sprinter Tries a 5k
I've started writing short stories. I haven't written any since high school, but a few months ago, I tried to write a poem that turned into a short story by accident, and decided to keep working on it. I find prose kind of scary, for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm not an endurance person. I mean, I compete in poetry slams that only allow me three minutes on stage. When I did sports as a kid, I played softball, which stops and starts every five minutes. I'm a sprinter. The first time I had to write a ten page paper in college, I froze around page eight. (On the other hand, I once had a professor demand a three-page paper, and threatened to fail anyone who went over the limit. Some of my classmates had panic attacks. I had a picnic.)
So, this fiction thing is weird, despite the fact that I love reading short stories. (I don't do it nearly often enough.) It occurs to me that I don't have to learn how to write short stories the same way I learned how to write poetry (by writing and writing and stubbornly refusing to learn any of the basics of craft until I'd been writing seriously for six years). Maybe I should do some research on how to write prose, figure out how it works.
I'm still doing the 365 poems project, because, hey, I'm not a quitter. But maybe this short story bit will go somewhere. Here's an excerpt from the draft I'm working on now:
So, this fiction thing is weird, despite the fact that I love reading short stories. (I don't do it nearly often enough.) It occurs to me that I don't have to learn how to write short stories the same way I learned how to write poetry (by writing and writing and stubbornly refusing to learn any of the basics of craft until I'd been writing seriously for six years). Maybe I should do some research on how to write prose, figure out how it works.
I'm still doing the 365 poems project, because, hey, I'm not a quitter. But maybe this short story bit will go somewhere. Here's an excerpt from the draft I'm working on now:
Jenny Silverman stood on the back porch of the student co-op kitchen, crying onion tears into a bar mop. She scooped up some snow from the railing and pressed it against each eye, shuddering as the beginning winds of a Nor’easter snaked through her jeans and the long johns underneath. She was so not cut out for this – for Vermont, or a northeast winter, or cooking. She hated the constant process of layering and unlayering her clothes as she walked from one blistering steam-heated building to another. She most hated her roommate’s cheerfulness. Nora seemed not only not to mind the cold and dark, but to actually revel in it.
At the first sign of flurries in November, Nora had gleefully begun knitting Jenny a full winter set – hat, mittens and scarf. Nora was a champion knitter, and was famous for once having excused herself from class to get more yarn in the middle of a lecture.
“No offense or anything,” Nora had said, taking measurements of Jenny’s head as she tried to focus on Principles of Macroeconomics, “but I’m just going to assume that you didn’t bring any useful winter stuff from Los Angeles.” She finished the hat in two days, and despite her resentment at being treated like an ignorant warm-weather wuss, Jenny wore it every day. Nora had thoughtfully made ear flaps, and left ample room for what she affectionately called Jenny’s Jewfro.
1/20/2010
Seattle 91, or another poem draft
2010 poem-a-day project #19
the forgotten song of the quebecois canoe
for A.C.E. Bauer, with love.
(though the 'you' is not you)
when you arrived
on this dirt patch stone hill
of moss and shedding evergreens,
you came by water.
generations of your children caught frogs
in the pucky kneecap of the lake,
pricked their feet on sharp grass,
popped bubbles of spruce sap,
watched blueberries rise
from the ashes
of careless campground wildfire.
you played Risk, Jenga, Mille Borne, Monopoly.
even the adults read comic books.
when they finally chopped down
enough trees to carve a car path,
you didn't have to name it anything more
than "the road."
every day was a talent show;
who knew your father could make such bread,
your mother, so keen with a woodstove?
where else could you appreciate
the cousin who used a jacknife
like an extension of his own thumb,
your sister, effortlessly rising from the foamy wake
on splintered water skis two sizes too big,
your own penchant for making fires?
and do you remember
how you pressed your lips
to the spruce tree by the porch
when no one was looking?
how you promised to return,
your sticky sap-stung lips
parting to breathe water
and pine.
the forgotten song of the quebecois canoe
for A.C.E. Bauer, with love.
(though the 'you' is not you)
when you arrived
on this dirt patch stone hill
of moss and shedding evergreens,
you came by water.
generations of your children caught frogs
in the pucky kneecap of the lake,
pricked their feet on sharp grass,
popped bubbles of spruce sap,
watched blueberries rise
from the ashes
of careless campground wildfire.
you played Risk, Jenga, Mille Borne, Monopoly.
even the adults read comic books.
when they finally chopped down
enough trees to carve a car path,
you didn't have to name it anything more
than "the road."
every day was a talent show;
who knew your father could make such bread,
your mother, so keen with a woodstove?
where else could you appreciate
the cousin who used a jacknife
like an extension of his own thumb,
your sister, effortlessly rising from the foamy wake
on splintered water skis two sizes too big,
your own penchant for making fires?
and do you remember
how you pressed your lips
to the spruce tree by the porch
when no one was looking?
how you promised to return,
your sticky sap-stung lips
parting to breathe water
and pine.
1/16/2010
Seattle 90, or A Poem Draft
(italics indicate lines to be sung)
Pie Jesu domine…
The first time I sang
about Jesus
was in middle school.
The choir was half Jewish.
Some kids dropped out before the concert
because their parents told them to,
some of their own volition, and some
because they wanted an excuse
to stop singing.
I was going to join them,
make a statement,
but my family knows less about picket lines
than the works of Palestrina,
and said no.
Music is holy.
Learn make your peace with it.
It was never about the lyrics. I know more
of the Latin Mass than half the Catholics
I grew up with, and it never seemed wrong.
Singing in a choir is the closest
I've ever come
to flying.
If given that chance,
would you stop to question
the makeup of your wings?
I've stood in grand cathedrals
built on the ashes of Jewish towns,
and felt forgiveness spread
across my shoulders
when I hear those arched ceilings
cradle the offerings of our voices.
My grandfather, a Holocaust survivor,
fills the house with Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.
Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
He doesn’t call this forgiveness.
He calls it human; a recognition
of something that exists above us.
"Some things, darling, you just can't live without.”
I was four when he began to teach me music;
twelve, before he mentioned G-d.
I’ve sung in churches
and Christmas concerts.
I’ve sung praise hymns
and Vespers. I know more
songs about Jesus than I do
about any of my own religion’s heroes.
And I know peace.
It was never about the words.
Deine Zauber binden wieder Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Pie Jesu domine…
The first time I sang
about Jesus
was in middle school.
The choir was half Jewish.
Some kids dropped out before the concert
because their parents told them to,
some of their own volition, and some
because they wanted an excuse
to stop singing.
I was going to join them,
make a statement,
but my family knows less about picket lines
than the works of Palestrina,
and said no.
Music is holy.
Learn make your peace with it.
It was never about the lyrics. I know more
of the Latin Mass than half the Catholics
I grew up with, and it never seemed wrong.
Singing in a choir is the closest
I've ever come
to flying.
If given that chance,
would you stop to question
the makeup of your wings?
I've stood in grand cathedrals
built on the ashes of Jewish towns,
and felt forgiveness spread
across my shoulders
when I hear those arched ceilings
cradle the offerings of our voices.
My grandfather, a Holocaust survivor,
fills the house with Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.
Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
He doesn’t call this forgiveness.
He calls it human; a recognition
of something that exists above us.
"Some things, darling, you just can't live without.”
I was four when he began to teach me music;
twelve, before he mentioned G-d.
I’ve sung in churches
and Christmas concerts.
I’ve sung praise hymns
and Vespers. I know more
songs about Jesus than I do
about any of my own religion’s heroes.
And I know peace.
It was never about the words.
Deine Zauber binden wieder Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
1/12/2010
Seattle 89.5 - Relevant Stuff that I Did Not Write
All by Themselves
As the Ravenna Kibbutz parts ways with Moishe House, the neighborhood cooperative looks to the future
By Leyna Krow
As the Ravenna Kibbutz parts ways with Moishe House, the neighborhood cooperative looks to the future
By Leyna Krow
The Ravenna Kibbutz benefit party, featuring dancing, food, and cocktails, will take place at 8 p.m., Sat., Jan. 30 at Ravenna Kibbutz House Gimmel, 6211 23rd Ave. NE, Seattle.
On the evening of Dec. 26, 15 Ravenna Kibbutz residents and regulars gathered in the living room of House Aleph to reflect on the impact the Moishe House organization, which has helped to fund the Ravenna Kibbutz since it first opened in 2007, has had on their home lives, social lives, and Jewish lives.
“I really had a hard time connecting to Judaism before I moved to Seattle. This is the first time I’m been able to find a community that I relate to,” said Mai Li Pittard after recounting the first time she attended a Moishe House-sponsored event at the Kibbutz.
This was not just idle nostalgia, but rather, a eulogy of sorts. As of the beginning of January, the Ravenna Kibbutz is no longer an affiliate of Moishe House.
Moishe House has provided both essential funds as well as programming direction and support to the Kibbutz for the last two years. Parting ways with the Oakland, Calif.-based organization will mark a major sea change for the Kibbutz...
See the rest of the article article here, on Jew-ish dot com.1/11/2010
1/05/2010
Seattle 88, or Poem for My Mother's Birthday
How to Finish a Really Good Book
when you've got ten pages to go,
slow down.
breathe
in between
each paragraph.
at seven pages,
stop trying to guess the ending.
at four,
do not answer the phone.
at three, stop.
go back a chapter.
read it again, with a pencil.
leave a trail of asterisks
and reminders to quote.
when the last paragraph is in sight,
pray for an epilogue.
regard the final words
like your five-year-old daughter
climbing into the school bus
without looking back.
close the book
before the page gets wet.
hold it against you.
cross your arms over it.
trace the spine with your smallest finger.
tell the library you lost it,
and pass it on.
when you've got ten pages to go,
slow down.
breathe
in between
each paragraph.
at seven pages,
stop trying to guess the ending.
at four,
do not answer the phone.
at three, stop.
go back a chapter.
read it again, with a pencil.
leave a trail of asterisks
and reminders to quote.
when the last paragraph is in sight,
pray for an epilogue.
regard the final words
like your five-year-old daughter
climbing into the school bus
without looking back.
close the book
before the page gets wet.
hold it against you.
cross your arms over it.
trace the spine with your smallest finger.
tell the library you lost it,
and pass it on.
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