[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #008
PDF (More printable) Edition
(That is, either this is the PDF edition or that is a link to it.)
09 November, 2020
This is the eighth issue of the newsletter.
I hope to get this out before the Sabbath starts tonight. (As I write this, I have 45 minutes.)
I took the week off from work, which, while relaxing, was somewhat pointless. With the lockdown, other than going to the Embassy on Monday and doing grocery shopping, it has been almost indistinguishable from quarantine.
I had planned to skip writing the Things of Possible Interest segments entirely this week, since as of Friday morning, I didn’t have a clue what I’d write about. But in flipping through my browser tabs, I did find a few things worth mentioning, so they’re here.
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Onward (draining the sogged?)!
Contents
This Week’s Posts
Friday, October 30th, 2020
A small crowd surrounds a table in the city square. Young women stand behind it. Jars of something I can’t identify from where I stand sit in a row on top. A neatly printed sign hanging from the front has several lines of information. I can sound out the words but don’t know what it means. A man, turning away from the table, sees me standing a couple of meters back from it. “Are you OK? Can I help you?” He has a gentle voice. He looks sort of like our mayor, from what I can see behind his black mask. I try to form a question, but end up just sounding like the Third Son: What is this? He reaches into a cloth bag and hands me one of the jars. “Take this, It’s for you. Courtesy of the city.” I thank him and wander off. Even close up, I can’t tell what’s in it. But it’s a lovely jar. Further in on the square, I get a burekas to take home for lunch. The man there asks me something. I can barely hear him over the hip-hop playing in the store. I don’t answer. He sees my American t-shirt and asks “English?” Yes. He asks again, in English. I don’t need to hear as many phonemes to figure out what he’s saying. Yes, I would like him to add an egg and tomato sauce. And an espresso. He prepares it all and puts the plate with the burekas in a bag. I sit on my usual spot on the stone wall and drink the espresso. He comes by with some food that he’s taking to a table farther back. It isn’t one of the tables from his shop. I guess that counts as being to-go or delivery and is thus allowed. “There’s a chair next to you, you know. You are allowed to sit in it.” I hadn’t noticed. I’m quite comfortable on the wall. But I move to the chair, since he had offered. I pass him again when I go to throw out my espresso cup. He is bringing a beer and a tall shot glass with what might be arak to an old woman at another table near the center of the square. At home, at dinner, I open the jar and have some of what’s in it on challah for dessert. The image on the jar is of a strawberry, but this is something like an orange marmalade. It’s delicious. I try to read the label. I recognize words about the virus and donations. I should have given someone some money, had I known. If it happens again, I will. When I’m done, I go to my computer, type in a name, and look for images. I was right. That was indeed the mayor.
Saturday, October 31st, 2020
The billboard in the city square no longer speaks about the virus. It bears a pink poster with a message about breast cancer. I don’t know if that’s an improvement, but at least it’s a slight return to things we saw before. A floodlight shines on it in the dark. I like walking at night. I usually come home from work around now, so I’ve seen these paths in the dark, but things look different when I’m walking away from my house rather than toward it. The middle of one block on the pedestrian street has no light. I hadn’t noticed that before. Looking around, I don’t see any streetlights that would illuminate it. Heading home, I must have just walked straight through the shadows. The Sabbath is over now. Downtown, a few small groceries and take-out eateries are open. As I walk past the open counter at one shop, a car pulls up and stops in the middle of the road. If there were any other traffic, it would be blocking it. Men yell from the car window, “Falafel? Falafel?” A woman inside yells back “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” The men yell again, “Falafel? Falafel?” Again, the woman calls back, “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” And again, the men yell twice, the woman three times. I wonder if I’ve just witnessed some sort of ritual or coded message. The men drive off. Several of the pizza places are open. The only open falafel joint is the popular one downtown. I hear loud music from the square outside the Great Synagogue. A man’s voice wails and slithers. I don’t know if he’s singing words, or, if so, in which language. The instruments roar along, playing something like “White Rabbit,” but in ⅞ time. It sounds like a celebration. When I get there, though, I see just one man, sitting, reading a newspaper, with a bluetooth speaker the size of a large thermos beside him blasting the sound. I take a different route than usual home, down the main street then up the one near mine where buses used to run. When I get in, I figure that I’ve been out for close to two hours. It’s only been 45 minutes. I have time to relax. I have fulfilled my mission. I have enough to write.
Sunday, November 1st, 2020
Four or five pigeons gather around a single crust of bread. There may be more. They come and go quickly enough and look so similar that I can’t keep an accurate count. Only one bites at the bread at a time. Whichever one has it pecks at it until it can lift the bit of bread from the ground, then shakes it until it falls. No one else tries to get at it while one is in control. If one is trying to get it but doesn’t yet have it in its beak, another might approach, but the one working on it often coos menacingly and pecks at the air toward the other bird. The other one usually backs off, though, rarely, the one working on it gives up and walks away. It looks like a sports match or a ritual, with well-defined rules. When a human comes through on foot or on a scooter, the pigeons scatter. They return when the intruder has passed. I’m sitting on a bench about a meter away with a falafel and coffee, but I’m relatively motionless. My feet aren’t moving. I doubt that they see anything higher. They continue to work on it until they have nibbled most of the softer bread away from the hard crust. When they are almost done, a human in a yellow vest comes by with a broom. He sweeps up the crust and disrupts the scene. When he’s gone, some of the pigeons return, but there’s nothing left to interest them. They move on.
Monday, November 2nd, 2020
The US branch embassy is surprisingly scruffy. I don’t know if it was like this before. The governments recently switched some signs around and declared the branch in another city to be the main site. There might be a grander facade hidden behind the construction barriers. Everyone here is friendly. Getting in is trickier than I expect. Before I can get through the standard airport-style screening gate, I have to rent a locker at a cafe down the street and stash all electronics, down to my earbuds, in it. Once inside, I go to window six. I tell the young man in the booth who I am and where I’m from. He has a brother a few towns over. He goes through documentation. It turns out that I can’t vote here. I can, however, fax my ballot to New Jersey. As he guesses correctly, I don’t have a fax machine. No problem. He gives me an email address provided by the Department of Defense. If I scan and email my ballot to them by tomorrow, they will automatically fax it to the right place. I head out, get my stuff out of the locker, and wander through the city, looking for someplace to eat.
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020
I wake up early with a plan. I will take the fast train to Jerusalem. I don’t have a particular destination there. I just want to take the new electric train out and back. I get on the railway’s website, and then on my phone, to get a ticket. First, I have to get confirmation that I can take it, since the trains can’t be too crowded. Fair enough. I select my departing station and destination. I set the time that I want to travel then choose a particular train near that time. I enter my name, email, national ID number, telephone number, and travel card number. I get an authentication code on my phone and enter that. The national railway confirms that I am cleared for the trip. I then have to book the trip itself. They need my credit card information, even though it is already associated with my travel card. I haven’t yet had a chance to indicate that it’s a round trip and when I will return. I imagine that I will have to clear that, too. I worry about having to pay for the trip out before I have selected a trip back. The bureaucracy drains my enthusiasm. I give up. Later, I decide to take the bus to the mall. The supermarket there should be open. I need a few things that I’ve only seen there. I tear myself away from the computer and get my phone, wallet, travel card, and shopping bag. I start to open the outside door. I realize that I’ve forgotten my mask. I double back to my desk and get one. I tie up the garbage bag to take out to the trash. I put on my mask and open my front door. For the first time since early spring, it starts to rain.
Wednesday, November 4th, 2020
Finding the one open entrance to the mall takes me a while. Inside, it is dark and grim. Few shops are open: the pharmacy, the supermarket, and a store with supposedly natural stuff that has just enough edible things to qualify. People are standing around in a sushi kiosk in the middle of the mall. Maybe they’re doing delivery or takeout. The supermarket is less crowded than usual. The produce is inexpensive. I suspect that they are under pressure to sell it to the few shoppers before it goes bad. The butcher’s bins of featured meat are full. Those of prepackaged meat are not. I get fruit, vegetables, some spices, bread, rice desserts, and a zero-calorie cola syrup for my seltzer maker. The aisle for buying less than ten items appears to be closed. Three young boys are sitting on the floor at the entrance to it with bags from another store. Apparently their mother has dumped them there while she shops. The cashier waves at me as I approach. The aisle is indeed open. I step over the boys to get there. When he takes my store credit card, the cashier asks me to enter my secret code. I’ve never needed that before. I have no idea what it might be. He says that he can enter my national ID number instead. OK. He inserts my card into the machine. Nothing happens. He flips it over and tries again. Nothing. I point to the smart chip in the card, which is outside of the scanner. He spins the card around and inserts it. Now it works. I exit the same way that I came in, walking around the outside of the mall to get to the bus stop. The heat on the bus is on. This may be the first time they have used it this season. It blows so hot from under my seat that I worry that it might cook my food. The rain resumes before we get to my stop. I have my baseball cap and my rain jacket. I get off the bus along with a young man in a Cleveland basketball shirt. He shivers. I am prepared.
Thursday, November 5th, 2020
Another day when I don’t get outside. I’m on vacation. There’s nowhere to go. I have already gotten all the groceries that I need, other than picking up a challah tomorrow. It’s raining intermittently. Most places are closed. There have been rumors that the shops on the street may open again on Sunday. People in charge say that they might not. The virus transmission rate is rising again. Online, I compulsively reload the pages about the US elections. The news is generally favorable, but not certain. Everyone I voted for won in my district. The national vote is still up in the air. Friends are interested in organizing back in the states. I do what I can to connect them to people who are putting groups together. I record a 75 minute piano track for a film score. I have to record three more layers to go with it. I go back and edit out wrong notes. Some may remain. I’ll only worry about them if I can hear them. Partway through the evening, my internet connection goes out. I’m upset. Then I’m not. I put on a sweater and queue up some Kate Bush videos. If the power goes out, I’ll go to bed.
On writing as if in dreams
I try to keep the posts between 200 and 500 words. I notice that when I have one clear image or anecdote to convey, they run shorter. When I have a jumble of impressions of the day, with little idea of where I’ll go from a starting sentence, they go longer.
I try not to ramble, but once I’m done, it can be hard to cut things out. Often, the sentences lead from one to another fairly clearly. What leads the first sentence to the second, however, may not be what leads the second to the third. Cutting out the second sentence can often lead to an awkward lurch from the first to what had been the third. I sometimes can rewrite around that, but it’s tricky.
I’ve also given some more attention of late to tying together the beginning and closing images. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s good when possible.
Things of Possible Interest
One thing I’m watching
I’ve been watching coverage of the US elections, of course. We get live broadcasts of US news on YouTube and on my Android TV’s network apps. Pundits everywhere are talking about what’s going on more or less effectively.
One ad has stood out for me this week. Leslie Odom Jr, who played Aaron Burr in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton and in the film, has recorded a new, brief version of his signature song, “Wait for It,” in a PSA for yet another advocacy group that’s new to me, Represent.Us.
The video looks and sounds amazing. Visually, it’s quite simple: Odom sits in a chair in a mysteriously lit room, shown in black and white. He sings the song and delivers a monologue about the need for patience in getting all the votes counted. His stark image is juxtaposed with color, amateur footage, of a type that has become quite familiar since the infamous Ice Bucket Challenge, of people holding up handmade “#WaitForIt” signs. Apparently there were some celebrities in there, but I didn’t spot them. It looks as if someone put out a call for these and everyone responded within a day.
The audio also jumps out. Odom is prompted by an off-screen voice, sits down at the mic, and sings. At first, he’s a cappella, but then instruments and backing singers kick in, playing a stripped down arrangement of the song. I think it’s a new recording. It certainly isn’t the enormous, more electronic arrangement from the original score, although it may be a remix of elements of it.
I’m curious about the use of black-and-white and color in the ad. I think I’m seeing a lot more black-and-white again than we had in a while. Election ads had used black-and-white, often at low resolution, for scare footage. But here, as well as, for example, in the new documentary, Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, it’s being used, I think, to convey a sense of authenticity and warmth.
I haven’t read anything about the making of the ad. It could have been made within a day, when it became clear that there would be a long wait before the election results (and, I suspect, that the vote would continue to tilt further toward the candidates whom the organization supports as it went on). It also could have been made beforehand, since odds were strong that this would happen.
Either way, it’s strong and effective. A lot of effort and money has gone into election ads this year, from groups such as the Lincoln Project and others. I don’t know what has worked and what hasn’t, but this ad and others are classics that may be studied in years to come.
One thing I’m hearing
I’ve only been listening to snippets of things this week, often when trying to wind down and go to sleep.
What I have listened to, however, has included a lot of music by the ensemble Apartment House and music by them and others on the Another Timbre label.
I’ve written about Apartment House in an earlier newsletter. They focus on contemporary music, often quite spare and accessible. They’ve been around for 25 years and keep doing wonderful, mostly accessible music.
Another Timbre has been around for quite a while, too, and has released over 150 albums. It’s run by Simon Reynell, a recording engineer with an ear for clarity and detail, which suits this music well.
Back in April, a concert in the UK was supposed to celebrate milestones for both the ensemble and the label. Like so much else this year, it didn’t happen.
Instead, they put together a podcast featuring them, with proceeds going to the musicians who would have been paid for doing the concent. (I’ve seen other such efforts, and bought a King Crimson t-shirt, celebrating their postponed 2020 tour, with proceeds going to their road crew.)
The podcast features over two hours of music from Apartment House on the Another Timbre label, preceded by an hour of interviews with the heads of each. (The podcast is broken out into separate tracks, so you can skip right into the music if you want.) You can pay what you’d like for it.
Go listen to the podcast.. If you like what you hear, check out more music by the label and the ensemble at Bandcamp.
By the way, if you read this before midnight Pacific time, it will still be Bandcamp Friday. Proceeds from everything you buy there will go directly to the artists and labels, with special sales happening in addition to it. Once I’m done writing this, I’ll dive into my monthly binge (within a set budgeting limit, of course).
One thing I’m reading
I haven’t had much focus for reading this week, other than election reporting. But one thing has stuck with me: an extraordinarily creepy short story by Leonora Carrrington, “White Rabbits”.
It’s not the kind of thing that I would normally read, but an article in The Quietus pointed out that Mary Anne Hobbs, a broadcaster on the BBC had spotted it as a possible influence on David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar and specifically on the song “Lazarus” and its video.
The end of the story feature a man named Lazarus who has a bandage over his eyes and skin like stars. Much of the feel of it resonates with the video and other bits of the Blackstar album. Word had it that more of an unraveling of clues about and within the album had been planned. Bowie, however, passed away within days of its release, so much of that didn’t happen.
“White Rabbits” isn’t a pleasant story, but it’s a good read for those interested in that kind of tale, as well as what Bowie may have been up to.
One more thing
On a whim, I picked up some Beyond Burgers a few days ago.
I was dubious about yet another vegan substitute for hamburgers. Most of what I’ve tried have been pale imitations of the real thing, or something else entirely. (I like the mushroom burgers that I’ve been writing about from my neighborhood burger joint, but they are clearly breaded mushroom patties, only resembling beef burgers in name and shape.)
These are really good. I’ve had two of them, grilled up straight without other stuff in the bun to confuse the palate. My mundane tastebuds and texture sensors (whatever function does that) couldn’t tell the difference between them and beef burgers.
I don’t know how expensive they were, since the store receipt got destroyed in the rain. I’m not vegetarian, so I don’t have much of a reason to stick with them. But it’s good to know that they exist.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line.)
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