Several years ago, I spent a week with a friend who had come to Israel to visit me. We spent one day with relatives of mine who live in a small town in the north of Israel. My relatives graciously showed us various points of interest in the area, and hosted us for the night. The next day, my friend and I woke early, had breakfast, said goodbye to my relatives, and took a bus to Jerusalem.
Still groggy, my friend and I boarded the Jerusalem-bound bus, took two seats at the back of the bus, and settled in, hoping to catch a bit more shut-eye.
A few minutes into the trip, still very much in a sleepy-headed state, I opened my eyes for a moment. My friend was still happily asleep. But I now saw something which caught my attention. Seated directly in front of us was a young Arab couple, in their early- or mid-twenties. Although they were not touching each other, their body language and the fond gaze in their eyes indicated that they were very much in love with each other.
I glanced down and saw that I was wrong about their not touching each other at all. For I noticed that they were holding hands.
Actually, that's not exactly true. It would be more accurate to say that they were hand talking. Their fingers alternatively intertwined and then pulled apart. The fingers of one hand would flitter gently all over the other's fingers and palms. Their fingers and hands were graceful ballet dancers, engaged in a lively, loving performance, expressing their obvious affection for each other, through an intricate series of circular motions, figure eights, pirouettes and adagios. And there was a subtle but definite suggestiveness in certain of the repetitive motions which their hands made together. So much expressiveness, and all of it non-verbal!
I watched this beautiful display of finger love for only a minute or two, but it was the most romantic, intimate, erotic vision I have ever seen in my life.
I had originally planned to conclude this post with the above sentence, but as so often happens when I write, the act of writing brings to the fore of my mind previously forgotten details. In this case, not a detail, but another, earlier incident.
One of the institutions of traditional Judaism is the Friday evening Sabbath meal. And writing down the above episode triggered in my mind a memory of one such Sabbath meal which transpired a few years earlier. The participants were mostly young men and women in their twenties and thirties, about a dozen or so of us.
In point of fact, I remember absolutely nothing of the meal itself. What I do remember is that after the meal, we were all sitting around in the host's living room, which, due to the late hour, was dimly lit. Two of the people spread around the room, on various chairs, couches, and window sills, were the son of a Rabbi and his girlfriend, who were seated next to each other.
For just a very brief moment, they rubbed their hands against each other. And in that don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it intense pressing of sweaty hand against sweaty hand, which lasted literally no more than a fraction of a second, there was an expression of such raw, harsh urgency, that a more vulgar, pornographic vision I have never seen in my life. So unexpected was the, yes, fierceness reflected in that momentary gesture that my mind was almost as taken aback as it would have been if they had had the poor taste and judgement to perform the most intimate conjugal act imaginable in public!
If the above characterization sounds critical on my part, then I sincerely apologize, for it is not at all meant to be so. These two young lovers were innocently and un-self-consciously (behold, a doubly hyphenated word!) expressing the heady spell of passion which engulfed them both. Little did they know that their brief exchange had come within the radar of a hand reader!
The philosopher asks: What is the sound of one hand clapping? I know not, but I have seen the dialog of two hands clasping, and I know that hands are abundantly capable of expressing the most intimate aspects of human emotion, from the most fierce to the most tender.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
What Are Little Girls and Boys Made Of?
For the better part of a decade, I taught in a Jewish private school, primarily at the primary level. One part of my class which my students loved best was the timeless subject of recess. And, in addition, I would occasionally give my students an extra portion of that part of my class which they loved best.
On one occasion, when my sixth-graders were playing in the schoolyard, under my supervision, I recalled a game that my peers and I had played when we were in that very same grade: whip-ball, which was simply a spin-off of sports played against a wall, such as handball and racquetball.
One player begins by "whipping" a tennis ball against said wall. The player next in turn must catch the ball after it has struck the wall, before it has bounced three times. If he fails to do so, he is eliminated. If he catches the ball, he then whips it against the wall, and the next player must now catch it. And so on. The last player remaining is thee winnah.
I walked over to the boys and explained the game to them, and, eagerly rising to the challenge, they began a very rousing game of whip-ball. Not surprisingly, the most audible segment of the game was when one of the participants failed to catch the whipped ball, and was eliminated. As the boys got the hang of the game, that event was met by those combatants not yet annihilated with an increasingly loud chorus of roars, eruptions of Yes! and triumphant fist-pumps, fully worthy of a band of pillaging Vikings.
A few days later, I introduced the game to the girls, and they too enthusiastically launched into a round of whip-ball. At one point, a girl whipped the ball against the wall with sufficient force to propel it quite a distance, and the girl whose turn it was to catch the whipped ball ran valiantly after it. Once bounce. Getting closer. Two bounces. Just a couple of feet away. Summoning all of her energy, she lunged for the ball. But oops! Three bounces. No! She deftly managed to snag the ball just nanometers before the dreaded third bounce.
This feat of derring-do was greeted by the rest of the female participants with a chorus of applause and cheers. Yay! Good job! You go, girl! And the game then took a very interesting, and for me, unexpected, turn. From that point on, every single successful catch of the game was similarly received with a cheery round of accolades.
I couldn't help but notice this stark contrast between the boys, ferociously rejoicing over every fallen soldier, and the girls, gleefully reveling in each successful catch of their fellow sisters.
Vive la différence.
On one occasion, when my sixth-graders were playing in the schoolyard, under my supervision, I recalled a game that my peers and I had played when we were in that very same grade: whip-ball, which was simply a spin-off of sports played against a wall, such as handball and racquetball.
One player begins by "whipping" a tennis ball against said wall. The player next in turn must catch the ball after it has struck the wall, before it has bounced three times. If he fails to do so, he is eliminated. If he catches the ball, he then whips it against the wall, and the next player must now catch it. And so on. The last player remaining is thee winnah.
I walked over to the boys and explained the game to them, and, eagerly rising to the challenge, they began a very rousing game of whip-ball. Not surprisingly, the most audible segment of the game was when one of the participants failed to catch the whipped ball, and was eliminated. As the boys got the hang of the game, that event was met by those combatants not yet annihilated with an increasingly loud chorus of roars, eruptions of Yes! and triumphant fist-pumps, fully worthy of a band of pillaging Vikings.
A few days later, I introduced the game to the girls, and they too enthusiastically launched into a round of whip-ball. At one point, a girl whipped the ball against the wall with sufficient force to propel it quite a distance, and the girl whose turn it was to catch the whipped ball ran valiantly after it. Once bounce. Getting closer. Two bounces. Just a couple of feet away. Summoning all of her energy, she lunged for the ball. But oops! Three bounces. No! She deftly managed to snag the ball just nanometers before the dreaded third bounce.
This feat of derring-do was greeted by the rest of the female participants with a chorus of applause and cheers. Yay! Good job! You go, girl! And the game then took a very interesting, and for me, unexpected, turn. From that point on, every single successful catch of the game was similarly received with a cheery round of accolades.
I couldn't help but notice this stark contrast between the boys, ferociously rejoicing over every fallen soldier, and the girls, gleefully reveling in each successful catch of their fellow sisters.
Vive la différence.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
The Medium Upstages The Message
As a descendant of an Eastern European Jewish family, a subject of personal interest which I revisit from time to time is the Holocaust. I was riveted by Elie Wiesel's Night. While I found the writings of Primo Levi less accessible, nevertheless I somehow found them no less compelling.
One of the more chilling accounts of that crimson stain on humanity comes in the form of a comic book. Maus was written and illustrated just over two decades ago by Art Spiegelman, the son of Holocaust survivors. In his two-volume graphic novel, Art (pun intended?) depicts the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats.
If you are unfamiliar with this literary work and, understandably, think that a comic book on the mass murder of Jews seems unseemly and inappropriate for the enormity of the subject matter, I assure you that it very successfully conveys the monstrosities with haunting realism. Ironically, in many ways I found volume 1, which chronicles the events just up to the Holocaust, far more horrific than volume 2.
One scene sticks out in my mind: young Art asks his father to explain how it felt to live during that time. His father suddenly bellows out Boo! at him and Art, startled, jumps back. His father tells him to imagine that every single moment of your existence is like that. What is so effective about this explanation is that it wisely forgoes any attempt to directly describe the non-describable and instead uses analogy to give a sense of the terror.
One day, a few years after its publication, during the period in which I lived in Boston, I learned that Art had been invited to give a lecture on Maus at Harvard, and that the lecture would be open to the public. The opportunity to hear the author of this arresting book speak in person promised to be an intensely powerful experience, and I of course attended. The talk was held in a lecture hall of considerable size, and there were no empty seats. Hundreds were in attendance.
It was the most bizarre lecture I've ever been to in my life.
For the next 90 minutes, I sat dumbfounded as Art spoke exclusively on his choice of presenting the work in comic book format, as opposed to the more traditional textual format. He discussed such utterly technical topics as the use of shadow, closeups, the positioning of the dialog balloons relative to the characters, his decision of how to depict non-German non-Jews (dogs) and similar minutiae. Art employed an overhead projector, which displayed panels from the book on a large screen as Art discussed them.
In the most surrealistic part of the lecture, in response to a question from the audience during the Q & A portion, a panel depicting the most carnal scene of torture and murder blazed on the screen from the overhead projector while Art dryly expounded on orientation, perspective, vertical lines and contours. To my mind, it was as if a group of fashion designers were to come upon a person lying bleeding on the street, shot to death, and were to begin reviewing his sartorial ensemble.
Not the slightest mention throughout the entire speech of Art's relationship with his father, what it was like growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors, his mother's suicide, the experience of depicting such cruel barbarity, how the Holocaust colored his own view of the world, his belief in God, the nature of good and evil, man's inhumanity to man, or any of the myriad spiritual, emotional and philosophical concerns that, one thinks, would inhabit his mind during the process of producing a portrayal of disease, torture, starvation and genocide.
So divorced from the content of his art was Art that it was as if the subject material he had chosen for his book was completely irrelevant to him, and only the art form mattered. As if the decision-making process that had led to his embarking on the project had gone something like this:
Nevertheless, it does remain an interesting question whether Art's primary goal was to document the Holocaust, and decided that the graphic novel would best serve that purpose, or whether Art's main objective was to produce a graphic novel, and decided that the Holocaust would be a suitable subject matter. Probably there is no either-or answer, and for Art, the form and the content are both paramount and inextricably linked.
At any rate, my experience at another lecture on the Holocaust which I attended at roughly the same time seems germane.
Around the time that Maus was published, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List was released, a film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.
And around the time that Art delivered his lecture on Maus in Cambridge, one of the so-called "Schindler Jews" gave a talk in nearby Brookline, about her experiences from that period. This lecture too was widely attended, mostly by the Jewish community.
Although I remember little of the specific content of that sixty-ish woman's talk, I do remember that the entire audience, myself included, was spellbound by her reminiscences, and I likewise recall that she did speak of the searingly personal.
There is, however, one specific detail of that talk which I remember vividly: the tone of her delivery, which can best be described as flat in affect. This is not to say that her voice was meek or listless. Quite the contrary, it was strong like copper, reflecting a person with a vibrant spirit. But she delivered her speech in a dispassionate monotone, as if she were reading from a phone book, or conjugating a verb.
The jarring contrast between the deeply personal and sensitive content of her words and the emotionless tone of her inflection, which people I spoke with almost invariably mentioned, was explained as the method which she had adopted in order to allow herself to speak of such horribly raw events of her life without losing composure and breaking down. This dry schoolmarm intonation allowed her to create the emotional distance that was necessary for her to be able to calmly describe the inhumane barbarities she had personally witnessed.
And I wonder if Art's exclusive focus on the technical elements of the work during his speech was a similar mechanism which he had adopted to allow himself the requisite emotional detachment from the unspeakable atrocities which would otherwise be too unbearable to relate.
One of the more chilling accounts of that crimson stain on humanity comes in the form of a comic book. Maus was written and illustrated just over two decades ago by Art Spiegelman, the son of Holocaust survivors. In his two-volume graphic novel, Art (pun intended?) depicts the Jews as mice and the Germans as cats.
If you are unfamiliar with this literary work and, understandably, think that a comic book on the mass murder of Jews seems unseemly and inappropriate for the enormity of the subject matter, I assure you that it very successfully conveys the monstrosities with haunting realism. Ironically, in many ways I found volume 1, which chronicles the events just up to the Holocaust, far more horrific than volume 2.
One scene sticks out in my mind: young Art asks his father to explain how it felt to live during that time. His father suddenly bellows out Boo! at him and Art, startled, jumps back. His father tells him to imagine that every single moment of your existence is like that. What is so effective about this explanation is that it wisely forgoes any attempt to directly describe the non-describable and instead uses analogy to give a sense of the terror.
One day, a few years after its publication, during the period in which I lived in Boston, I learned that Art had been invited to give a lecture on Maus at Harvard, and that the lecture would be open to the public. The opportunity to hear the author of this arresting book speak in person promised to be an intensely powerful experience, and I of course attended. The talk was held in a lecture hall of considerable size, and there were no empty seats. Hundreds were in attendance.
It was the most bizarre lecture I've ever been to in my life.
For the next 90 minutes, I sat dumbfounded as Art spoke exclusively on his choice of presenting the work in comic book format, as opposed to the more traditional textual format. He discussed such utterly technical topics as the use of shadow, closeups, the positioning of the dialog balloons relative to the characters, his decision of how to depict non-German non-Jews (dogs) and similar minutiae. Art employed an overhead projector, which displayed panels from the book on a large screen as Art discussed them.
In the most surrealistic part of the lecture, in response to a question from the audience during the Q & A portion, a panel depicting the most carnal scene of torture and murder blazed on the screen from the overhead projector while Art dryly expounded on orientation, perspective, vertical lines and contours. To my mind, it was as if a group of fashion designers were to come upon a person lying bleeding on the street, shot to death, and were to begin reviewing his sartorial ensemble.
Not the slightest mention throughout the entire speech of Art's relationship with his father, what it was like growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors, his mother's suicide, the experience of depicting such cruel barbarity, how the Holocaust colored his own view of the world, his belief in God, the nature of good and evil, man's inhumanity to man, or any of the myriad spiritual, emotional and philosophical concerns that, one thinks, would inhabit his mind during the process of producing a portrayal of disease, torture, starvation and genocide.
So divorced from the content of his art was Art that it was as if the subject material he had chosen for his book was completely irrelevant to him, and only the art form mattered. As if the decision-making process that had led to his embarking on the project had gone something like this:
Hmmm. What topic shall I choose for my graphic novel? Superheroes? Nah, been done to death. Movie satires? Uh-uh. Too derivative. Something political? Nope, too narrow. Ah, I've got it -- the Holocaust!I wish to stress very firmly that the above was simply a mental image that entered my head in my surprised reaction to the nature of Art's lecture. I am not suggesting that Art's thinking actually went along those flippant lines.
Nevertheless, it does remain an interesting question whether Art's primary goal was to document the Holocaust, and decided that the graphic novel would best serve that purpose, or whether Art's main objective was to produce a graphic novel, and decided that the Holocaust would be a suitable subject matter. Probably there is no either-or answer, and for Art, the form and the content are both paramount and inextricably linked.
At any rate, my experience at another lecture on the Holocaust which I attended at roughly the same time seems germane.
Around the time that Maus was published, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List was released, a film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.
And around the time that Art delivered his lecture on Maus in Cambridge, one of the so-called "Schindler Jews" gave a talk in nearby Brookline, about her experiences from that period. This lecture too was widely attended, mostly by the Jewish community.
Although I remember little of the specific content of that sixty-ish woman's talk, I do remember that the entire audience, myself included, was spellbound by her reminiscences, and I likewise recall that she did speak of the searingly personal.
There is, however, one specific detail of that talk which I remember vividly: the tone of her delivery, which can best be described as flat in affect. This is not to say that her voice was meek or listless. Quite the contrary, it was strong like copper, reflecting a person with a vibrant spirit. But she delivered her speech in a dispassionate monotone, as if she were reading from a phone book, or conjugating a verb.
The jarring contrast between the deeply personal and sensitive content of her words and the emotionless tone of her inflection, which people I spoke with almost invariably mentioned, was explained as the method which she had adopted in order to allow herself to speak of such horribly raw events of her life without losing composure and breaking down. This dry schoolmarm intonation allowed her to create the emotional distance that was necessary for her to be able to calmly describe the inhumane barbarities she had personally witnessed.
And I wonder if Art's exclusive focus on the technical elements of the work during his speech was a similar mechanism which he had adopted to allow himself the requisite emotional detachment from the unspeakable atrocities which would otherwise be too unbearable to relate.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
This Is The Best! Post! Ever!
Back in the day when men were men and women were women and I used to mosey on over to ye local video store to rent the occasional video, I noticed something. As I would peruse the aisles, hunting for my entertainment for the evening, picking up one video after another, and reading the blurb on the back of each, it seemed that each video touted itself as not just a merely good film, and not a merely great film, but nothing less than the best! film! ever! produced!
This was certainly nothing new -- if you watch trailers of movies going back as far as the 1940's, you'll see that many of them similarly wax ecstatic, using such euphoric phrases as:
Okay, maybe not that euphoric. But certainly the advertisers were literally going overboard (ha! of course, not literally!) to rope in their potential audience.
This advertising gimmick reminds me of one of my high school teachers, a then-young Rabbi whom my classmates and I all liked. I even know his age at the time he taught us, for he informed us one day that he was 37, and the thought that I would ever reach that age myself seemed unimaginable.
Unfortunately, our interest in the subject matter did not match our affection for our teacher. One day, as he, as usual, struggled in vain to capture our attention, in what on hindsight seems clearly an act of wild desperation, he suddenly proclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:
But not past that. By next class, we were back to our usual inattentive mode. Suddenly, the Rabbi proclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:
This was certainly nothing new -- if you watch trailers of movies going back as far as the 1940's, you'll see that many of them similarly wax ecstatic, using such euphoric phrases as:
- Like nothing you've ever seen before!
- You won't believe your eyes!
- A new triumph in cinematic entertainment!
- The greatest event since the invention of fire!
- More exciting than the resurrection of the dead!
- This film has magical powers to cure cancer!
Okay, maybe not that euphoric. But certainly the advertisers were literally going overboard (ha! of course, not literally!) to rope in their potential audience.
This advertising gimmick reminds me of one of my high school teachers, a then-young Rabbi whom my classmates and I all liked. I even know his age at the time he taught us, for he informed us one day that he was 37, and the thought that I would ever reach that age myself seemed unimaginable.
Unfortunately, our interest in the subject matter did not match our affection for our teacher. One day, as he, as usual, struggled in vain to capture our attention, in what on hindsight seems clearly an act of wild desperation, he suddenly proclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:
If you should learn nothing else this year, you should at least learn this!That did it. We were riveted. We hung onto every word that escaped his lips. And, to a certain extent, the effect lasted for the rest of the class.
But not past that. By next class, we were back to our usual inattentive mode. Suddenly, the Rabbi proclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:
If you should learn nothing else this year, you should at least learn this!Sorry, Rabbi. It works only once.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Translation Consternation Part 1: I Can See for Kilometers and Kilometers
Having read several books and watched several movies translated from English to Hebrew, I offer thee, dear reader, various translations I encountered over the years that tickled my linguistic funny bone.
The spaghetti classic Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo centers around an unusual partnership between "Blondie" and Tuco, played, respectively, by Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (who, at this writing, is just 23 months shy of attaining a triple-digit age).
Early in the film, Blondie (Il Buono) decides to dissolve his association with Tuco (Il Cattivo) and, somewhat inexplicably, abandons him in the middle of the desert, as he rides off on horseback. His valediction:
One method of testing the fidelity of a translation is to translate it back into the original language. The Hebrew translation of the first sentence, re-translated back into English?
Given that Israelis, like most of the rest of the world, have by now eschewed the imperial system and have gone metric, it is perfectly understandable that the translator did not travel the literal route, and instead favored the usage of kilometers, since miles mean little to most Israelis -- and to most non-Americans for that matter.
(I am one of increasingly few non-Yankees to think in miles, since Canada, my home and native land, did not convert to metric until after I had already learned the imperial system. (Imperialist gringo pig! (Oh, no -- not the dreaded embedded parentheses! Okay, let's settle down.)))
Having justified the translator's choice of units, let us now consider her choice of quantity. (For some reason, most Hebrew translations of films I have seen have been the fruit of female hands.) Since 1 mile equals 1.6 kilometers, 113 kilometers is unquestionably the equivalent of 70 miles, so the translator's choice is certainly numerically accurate, at least to the nearest kilometer.
But ought mathematical precision be the goal here? If it were a film of the life of Louis Pasteur and the dialog a discussion of the amount of potassium required for a chemical experiment in a laboratory, surely it would be.
But Blondie is not a real estate surveyor informing Tuco, his supervisor, of the exact dimensions of a tract of land, so that the latter could determine whether the land were suitable for cattle ranching or planting corn.
No, Blondie is taunting his erstwhile ally with the magnitude of the distance he will have to travel alone, on foot, under the hot desert sun, without food or water, and, if memory serves me correctly, with his hands tied together. For that purpose, a round number works best. Therefore, a translation of 110 km would seem more apt, or better still, 100 km, a less precise conversion, but a very round number indeed.
To close with a question: how would you translate the title of the song 500 Miles Away from Home? How do you think a jazz version of it would have sounded, by Kilometers Davis? At any rate, I am spent and I have promises to keep, and kilometers to go before I sleep.
The spaghetti classic Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo centers around an unusual partnership between "Blondie" and Tuco, played, respectively, by Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (who, at this writing, is just 23 months shy of attaining a triple-digit age).
Early in the film, Blondie (Il Buono) decides to dissolve his association with Tuco (Il Cattivo) and, somewhat inexplicably, abandons him in the middle of the desert, as he rides off on horseback. His valediction:
The way back to town is only 70 miles. If you save your breath, I feel a man like you could manage it. Adiós.(I will spare the reader the expletive-riddled riposte which Tuco hurls back at Blondie.)
One method of testing the fidelity of a translation is to translate it back into the original language. The Hebrew translation of the first sentence, re-translated back into English?
The way back to town is only 113 kilometers.One of the main considerations in translation is the choice between a literal rendering of the words and a non-literal one that attempts to preserve the spirit of the original text. Figures of speech are instructive: the phrase beat around the bush translated literally into a language that lacks that expression would fail completely to convey the intended meaning.
Given that Israelis, like most of the rest of the world, have by now eschewed the imperial system and have gone metric, it is perfectly understandable that the translator did not travel the literal route, and instead favored the usage of kilometers, since miles mean little to most Israelis -- and to most non-Americans for that matter.
(I am one of increasingly few non-Yankees to think in miles, since Canada, my home and native land, did not convert to metric until after I had already learned the imperial system. (Imperialist gringo pig! (Oh, no -- not the dreaded embedded parentheses! Okay, let's settle down.)))
Having justified the translator's choice of units, let us now consider her choice of quantity. (For some reason, most Hebrew translations of films I have seen have been the fruit of female hands.) Since 1 mile equals 1.6 kilometers, 113 kilometers is unquestionably the equivalent of 70 miles, so the translator's choice is certainly numerically accurate, at least to the nearest kilometer.
But ought mathematical precision be the goal here? If it were a film of the life of Louis Pasteur and the dialog a discussion of the amount of potassium required for a chemical experiment in a laboratory, surely it would be.
But Blondie is not a real estate surveyor informing Tuco, his supervisor, of the exact dimensions of a tract of land, so that the latter could determine whether the land were suitable for cattle ranching or planting corn.
No, Blondie is taunting his erstwhile ally with the magnitude of the distance he will have to travel alone, on foot, under the hot desert sun, without food or water, and, if memory serves me correctly, with his hands tied together. For that purpose, a round number works best. Therefore, a translation of 110 km would seem more apt, or better still, 100 km, a less precise conversion, but a very round number indeed.
To close with a question: how would you translate the title of the song 500 Miles Away from Home? How do you think a jazz version of it would have sounded, by Kilometers Davis? At any rate, I am spent and I have promises to keep, and kilometers to go before I sleep.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
A Tribute to What's His Name
A couple of months ago, I met a young man who was then boarding for a short period with a friend of mine. A student of music, he had met an Israeli professor of music online, and after some exchanges, the two agreed to meet. So this man came to Israel for a few weeks, during which time he and the Israeli professor met a number of times and discussed their common field of interest.
On the few occasions that I had the opportunity to speak to him while he was here, I found him a highly intelligent and playful conversationalist and enjoyed some rather stimulating conversations with him.
The other day, I decided to send him an email in order to keep in touch. Problem: I had forgotten his name.
So I decided to try a memory device I came up with (or "up with which I came", for you grammar aficionados) 25 years ago, and have since used from time to time. At that time, my then-roommate had had a dinner party, and one of the guests had brought a homemade pie which I enjoyed immensely, so I wanted to get the recipe from him -- but had forgotten the guest's name.
I have no idea how on earth the idea entered my head, but here is how it works:
On the few occasions that I had the opportunity to speak to him while he was here, I found him a highly intelligent and playful conversationalist and enjoyed some rather stimulating conversations with him.
The other day, I decided to send him an email in order to keep in touch. Problem: I had forgotten his name.
So I decided to try a memory device I came up with (or "up with which I came", for you grammar aficionados) 25 years ago, and have since used from time to time. At that time, my then-roommate had had a dinner party, and one of the guests had brought a homemade pie which I enjoyed immensely, so I wanted to get the recipe from him -- but had forgotten the guest's name.
I have no idea how on earth the idea entered my head, but here is how it works:
- Relax your mind and focus gently on the task.
- Very slowly, recite the letters of the alphabet.
- As you recite each letter, notice whether any catches your attention.
- When you get to a letter which does, focus on it, and see if a name beginning with that letter enters your mind.
- Hopefully, a name will enter your head which you recognize as the correct one.
Now even though this method had worked on that occasion, and on at least one or more others, it had been many years since I had used it, so I was not sure whether it would still work for me. So I began: A, B, C, ...
Sure enough, when I got to the letter S, my mind said: I think we're there. And almost immediately thereafter, a name popped into my head which I recognized as the name of my young musical friend: Sam.
Two notes about this method:
I'll be happy to hear whether this device works for you.
Sure enough, when I got to the letter S, my mind said: I think we're there. And almost immediately thereafter, a name popped into my head which I recognized as the name of my young musical friend: Sam.
Two notes about this method:
- Be quite passive when you use it. Don't try to force the letter or the name. Let your subconscious mind do the work, and do not help it.
- There seems to be a statute of limitations on the efficacy of this method, for I have just tried to recall again the name of the baker of that delicious pie from 25 years ago, fruitlessly, although the letter H does seem to be calling at me...
I'll be happy to hear whether this device works for you.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Scylla and Charybdis
To say that Israel Isidore Beilin, better known as Irving Berlin, was a successful songwriter is somewhat akin to saying that the grand canyon is a fairly big hole in the ground. For the prolific Berlin was the Michelangelo of songwriting. Some stats from his 60-year career:
- 1,500 songs composed
- scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films
- songs nominated 8 times for Academy Awards
- songs reached the top of the charts 25 times
Decade after decade, this Belarusian Jew's tunes were belted out by the greatest singers, from Bing (Crosby) to Babs (Streisand). And he was a songwriter's songwriter, praised by the best of them. George Gershwin: "the greatest songwriter that has ever lived". Jerome Kern: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music -- he is American music."
We've all heard them all, from rousing patriotic songs like God Bless America, to romantic ballads like Cheek to Cheek, to brassy show tunes like There's No Business Like Show Business.
Two events give us an idea of how entrenched Irving's music is in the American psyche:
Ironically, this Yiddish boychick is well known for songs celebrating not Passover and Channukah, but rather Christmas and Easter. How popular was his White Christmas?
It's a natural human reaction to feel positive about oneself when one has accomplished a task that one feels particularly proud of, right? (See how I added the word "right", so that my sentence would not end with a preposition? Sneaky devil, aren't I?) So what is the natural reaction of someone who reaches the pinnacle of success in one's field -- and in a field where success means ubiquitous recognition?
The best song that anybody's ever written. I reflect on the sheer magnitude of that statement. Is Irving speaking hyperbolically, or does he literally feel that he has come up with the best song in history, of all of the thousands (millions?) which have been composed over the millenia? Like many of the thoughts that enter our minds, the answer probably lies somewhere in the murky middle of consciousness. In any event, we clearly have a person who seems to have no lack of self-esteem in the area of melody making.
And yet. I read a few years ago about one occasion when Irving Berlin came up with a new tune. As usual, he summoned his musical secretary (Watson, come here; I need you!) so that he could perform the song and the secretary could take it down. Upon completion, the secretary expressed her opinion that the song (I forget which, unfortunately) was not exactly stellar.
Irving's reaction? He put the song in a drawer, where it sat for months.
Izzy, baby! What happened? You are the composer of the best! song! ever! written! remember? How could you possibly take a mere musical secretary's criticism so seriously?
One of life's most intriguing phenomena is the inner conflicts residing within the human mind, wherein we are torn between a dichotomy of diametrically opposed impulses. This mental polarity is illustrated exquisitely and succinctly by Saint Augustine's famous prayer: "Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet".
Why are we so sensitive to criticism, and why do we get so irate when someone insults us? I think at the core is the thought that if someone criticizes us, then there is very possibly some truth to their disapproval. Why would any thought enter someone's mind unless it contained some merit? In other words, we often resent negative judgments about us precisely because -- and precisely to the extent to which -- we agree with them! The critic's censure is a mirror which reveals to us an unflattering reflection of ourselves.
If someone were to walk up to you and mock you over the hand growing out of your head, would that anger you? I think not, because you would be absolutely sure that there was no legitimacy whatsoever to their criticism. You would probably instead simply believe your critic to be not quite right in the head.
But criticism is rarely as patently ludicrous as that, and so, there is frequently a nagging doubt in the mind that perhaps there is some veracity in the other person's negative opinion of us. After all, if everything about me were so wonderful, then how could this person, or anyone, possibly find fault with me?
To a not insignificant extent, our entire opinion of our self-worth is inextricably linked to others' opinions of us. Every day of our lives, we are being appraised, on social, professional, ethical, cultural, financial and a host of other levels. What is peer pressure, if not the fear of the truth of others' opinions of us?
And so the mind double-tracks between our own inner reaction to ourselves, and the external reactions of others to us. On the one hand is the natural tendency, propelled by the ego, to regard oneself positively. On the other hand, we are confronted by the evidence that another person disapproves of something we've said or done.
What is so astounding to me is that not even the great Irving Berlin, a person who had such a high opinion of his musicality that in some very real sense he literally viewed himself as the greatest musical composer in all of humanity was impervious to the derision of others. For the criticism of a simple musical stenographer's directed at such a colossal ego would seem to be analogous to a pebble flung at an unassailable steel fortress. And yet, behold: the tiny pebble topples the magnificent fortress!
Until a few months later, when, presumably, Irving pulled out the notes, looked them over, said to himself: Why on earth have I left the latest best song in the world lying around in a drawer?, and published them to wild critical and popular acclaim.
Two events give us an idea of how entrenched Irving's music is in the American psyche:
- The secret pre-arranged signal for the 1975 U.S. evacuation from Saigon at the close of the Vietnam War was a radio broadcast of White Christmas
- A broadcast the day of the September 11, 2001 attacks closed with the U.S. Congress singing God Bless America
Ironically, this Yiddish boychick is well known for songs celebrating not Passover and Channukah, but rather Christmas and Easter. How popular was his White Christmas?
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide. All other versions of the song, along with Bing Crosby's, has estimated sales over 100 million copies.What fascinates me about Mr. Berlin is his estimation of his own songwriting prowess. Here is what he had to say to his musical secretary about White Christmas:
Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've ever written -- heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's ever written!Is it surprising to hear Izzie speak so boastfully? Well, if year after year, for the past 3 decades, your songs were sung by the country's greatest singers, purchased by the million, performed on Broadway and in film after film, danced to in clubs across the land, and whistled, hummed and warbled every day by people on the street, don't you think you might develop a somewhat favorable opinion of your musical ability?
It's a natural human reaction to feel positive about oneself when one has accomplished a task that one feels particularly proud of, right? (See how I added the word "right", so that my sentence would not end with a preposition? Sneaky devil, aren't I?) So what is the natural reaction of someone who reaches the pinnacle of success in one's field -- and in a field where success means ubiquitous recognition?
The best song that anybody's ever written. I reflect on the sheer magnitude of that statement. Is Irving speaking hyperbolically, or does he literally feel that he has come up with the best song in history, of all of the thousands (millions?) which have been composed over the millenia? Like many of the thoughts that enter our minds, the answer probably lies somewhere in the murky middle of consciousness. In any event, we clearly have a person who seems to have no lack of self-esteem in the area of melody making.
And yet. I read a few years ago about one occasion when Irving Berlin came up with a new tune. As usual, he summoned his musical secretary (Watson, come here; I need you!) so that he could perform the song and the secretary could take it down. Upon completion, the secretary expressed her opinion that the song (I forget which, unfortunately) was not exactly stellar.
Irving's reaction? He put the song in a drawer, where it sat for months.
Izzy, baby! What happened? You are the composer of the best! song! ever! written! remember? How could you possibly take a mere musical secretary's criticism so seriously?
One of life's most intriguing phenomena is the inner conflicts residing within the human mind, wherein we are torn between a dichotomy of diametrically opposed impulses. This mental polarity is illustrated exquisitely and succinctly by Saint Augustine's famous prayer: "Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet".
Why are we so sensitive to criticism, and why do we get so irate when someone insults us? I think at the core is the thought that if someone criticizes us, then there is very possibly some truth to their disapproval. Why would any thought enter someone's mind unless it contained some merit? In other words, we often resent negative judgments about us precisely because -- and precisely to the extent to which -- we agree with them! The critic's censure is a mirror which reveals to us an unflattering reflection of ourselves.
If someone were to walk up to you and mock you over the hand growing out of your head, would that anger you? I think not, because you would be absolutely sure that there was no legitimacy whatsoever to their criticism. You would probably instead simply believe your critic to be not quite right in the head.
But criticism is rarely as patently ludicrous as that, and so, there is frequently a nagging doubt in the mind that perhaps there is some veracity in the other person's negative opinion of us. After all, if everything about me were so wonderful, then how could this person, or anyone, possibly find fault with me?
To a not insignificant extent, our entire opinion of our self-worth is inextricably linked to others' opinions of us. Every day of our lives, we are being appraised, on social, professional, ethical, cultural, financial and a host of other levels. What is peer pressure, if not the fear of the truth of others' opinions of us?
And so the mind double-tracks between our own inner reaction to ourselves, and the external reactions of others to us. On the one hand is the natural tendency, propelled by the ego, to regard oneself positively. On the other hand, we are confronted by the evidence that another person disapproves of something we've said or done.
What is so astounding to me is that not even the great Irving Berlin, a person who had such a high opinion of his musicality that in some very real sense he literally viewed himself as the greatest musical composer in all of humanity was impervious to the derision of others. For the criticism of a simple musical stenographer's directed at such a colossal ego would seem to be analogous to a pebble flung at an unassailable steel fortress. And yet, behold: the tiny pebble topples the magnificent fortress!
Until a few months later, when, presumably, Irving pulled out the notes, looked them over, said to himself: Why on earth have I left the latest best song in the world lying around in a drawer?, and published them to wild critical and popular acclaim.
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