[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #018
PDF (More printable) Edition
(That is, either this is the PDF edition or that is a link to it.)
15 January, 2021
This is issue number eighteen of the newsletter.
It’s been a moderately busy week. Again, much of my media consumption has been news from the States.
I’ve made some good connections and progress on the film project. More when I can say more.
So, once again, no reviews, just the posts.
As always, please pass on the newsletter to anyone that might enjoy it. If someone passed this on to you and you like it, please subscribe! (And there’s a link to unsubcribe, if needed, at the end of the emails.)
I’d love to hear any comments you might have on the newsletter and how it might be better. You can find me via email, Twitter, and Facebook.
Onward (avoiding the gulag?)!
This Week’s Posts
Friday, January 8th, 2021
The small park behind the coffee shop on the city square has become a de facto outdoor cafe. After my Friday shopping, I see that the shop’s front counter is open. I approach. They tell me to order around back. I go there and look around. People are sitting at the picnic tables, on plastic chairs, and on milk crates that are lying around. A worker emerges from a nondescript door. “Do you want to order?” I ask her for a large coffee granita. I hand her money. She returns after a while with the drink and my change. I sit on a low wall, a couple of meters from the trash can. Most of the seats are either taken or too close to other clusters of people. A tighter lockdown has been in effect since midnight. I don’t see much sign of it. Only the book and clothing stores are closed. All the falafel joints but one are open for orders. People stand around, a proper distance from their doors. Before I get my coffee, I order a cheese burekas from the sandwich shop and eat it at a chess table. The usual Friday backgammon game is in progress. The owner of the hummus joint sits at a table in front of his shop. He takes to-go orders on the phone and from passersby. They stand back near where the tables used to be. He brings the completed orders to them. In the brick-lined park, sitting on the wall, I start to drink my granita quickly. I get a brain freeze, lower than usual, by the side of my nose. It eventually passes. I drink the rest more slowly. When I’m done, I get up, take my groceries, and leave. A man, walking with two small daughters and their bicycles, comes and sits on the wall where I had been.
Saturday, January 9th, 2021
Even the Sabbath cafe is closed for the lockdown. An ice cream joint around the corner has its door open as usual, but an array of tables block the entrance. Plastic menus on several tables show the available flavors. Workers talk inside. None notice me looking at the menus. A small store a few doors down is open. It carries liquor and some food. A handful of men usually sit outside, talking in something like Arabic, but they aren’t there today. I see an ice cream freezer out front. I pick out a cone and go to the counter. There’s a coffee machine behind it. I ask for an espresso. “Short or long?” As many times as people have explained the difference to me, I can never remember what it means when I need to. I ask for the long. I head back to the city square with the cone and coffee. I sit at the best-lit chess table. The cone is very good: vanilla, but with a layer of a harder butter-flavored candy on top and a chocolate coating. I hear birds in the tree above me. I put the paper top from the cone over the coffee cup just in case. There’s enough light for me to read more of the book on music composition I’ve been carrying around. A woman wearing what looks like a sari comes past me, smiles, and says “Bon appetit.” Children roll past me on bicycles. One heads straight for the street, yelling, unable to stop. A grown man at the curb grabs the boy and the bike, spinning with the momentum. The man continues to hold him as he cries. A couple runs over. The man gently hands the boy over to them and stands the bike up against a lamp post. He nods to them and walks away. The streetlight comes on, casting the family in a vague halo as the sun continues to set.
Sunday, January 10th, 2021
Nine of us wait for a tenth man to appear for the afternoon prayers. The boss looks around. “I know it’s been hard for people to get here through the ice and snow.” It’s seventy degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. Lockdown roadblocks had slowed some people coming in to work. Cars were being stopped on the major roads. Most of us have forms showing that we are essential workers. We support hospital computer systems. Of those who have showed up on my side of the office, only one drives to work. The rest of us walk, bike, or take buses or trains. I stand in my usual place, leaning up against a pillar between two windows. The boss looks at me. “You should step into the sun. You are too pale.” OK. I get enough sun when I walk to work. The boss starts off the first prayer slowly. We don’t need the ten men for that one. He takes his time, enunciating each word rather than plowing through in the usual high-speed murmur. A tenth man shows up just as the boss gets to the end. He takes a spot near the office door. I don’t know if he’s actually praying, but his attentive presence is enough.
Monday, January 11th, 2021
The crowd outside the pharmacy is confused. As I approach, I see a few people step up to the doors, which open for them. Some are let in. Some aren’t. I get to the doors as they open again. I hear the guard explain what’s going on. It sounds like he’s done this a lot. “If you are here for prescriptions, only five people can come in at a time. If you are here for any other part of the store, you can come in now.” The official limit for the store as a whole is seventy customers. I guess they’re nowhere near that. I’m here for a prescription. I have to wait. The next time the door opens, the guard lets the five people in front of me in. I’m number six. Other people crowd behind me. Some ask me in Hebrew what’s happening. I can’t put the words together. Some speak to me in Russian. I can’t answer them either. After a while, five more of us are let in. The man behind me barrels ahead and gets to the queuing machine first. The machine spits out a number. He takes it and hands it to me, since I was waiting before him. He then takes a number for himself. His courtesy surprises me. I’m number 372. When they call 371, no one answers quickly, so they call me. Just as I get to the counter, a woman zooms over from the cosmetics racks, yelling that she is 371. Another pharmacist appears at the next counter. “Sir, 372, I can assist you here.” I’m there for the vitamin B-12. He gets it for me. There’s no discount for getting it as a prescription from my health plan, but at about fifteen dollars for a three month supply, that’s OK. I’m to take one a day, under my tongue. I’m not sure when. When I get up in the morning, I take the first pill of the day. I have to wait half an hour before eating. I slip the B-12 tablet under my tongue. It’s small and fits there comfortably. It tastes of artificial cherries. It dissolves after about twenty minutes. That’s OK. I catch up on email, get breakfast, and head off to see my doctor, in person this time.
Tuesday, January 12th, 2021
The tag in one of the bins of gelato is wrong. In Hebrew, it correctly shows the contents as strawberry sherbet. In English, it says “Dulce de Leche.” The bin behind it really is dulce de leche and has been tagged correctly. Perhaps the person making the tags got lost in the list of flavors. They also might not have known what flavor dulce de leche really is, or what it means in whatever language that is. I’m not sure if it’s Spanish, Italian, or something else. I spot the tag as I stand outside the shop waiting for a sahlab. Officially, they shouldn’t be serving people, but, even with the tighter lockdown, standing outside seems OK. I think of telling the worker that the sign is wrong, but there’s little point to it. I don’t know how I’d tell him, and he probably wouldn’t be able to fix it. He’s on the phone, anyway. He can’t find one of the ingredients and is asking someone else where it is. When I get the sahlab, I sit on my usual bench. People drift past me and around the plaza. A young girl in a yellow dress runs back and forth under the roof over the chairs. Occasionally, she jumps in the air and stomps down on one of the colored lights set in the ground. A man in a torn parka walks along the curb, shrieking quietly every few seconds. A delivery person stops his scooter and calls a name. A man dressed in traditional black and white, with a matching black and white mask, takes bags from the delivery person, walks to the plaza steps, and sits down with his family to eat. A teenager walks along another edge of the plaza as if on a tightrope. Halfway along, she loses her balance and starts to fall. She turns slightly, bends her knees, and launches herself into the air. She spins, lands safely, and bows. Her friends applaud. I finish my sahlab. I pick up the cup, spoon, and napkins, as well as the trash that had been on the bench when I got there. I put my mask back on and continue on home.
Wednesday, January 13th, 2021
In the twenty-shekel store, some things cost twenty shekels. Some things cost less. Some things aren’t worth as much as they’re charging. Twenty shekels equals a bit over six dollars now. A few weeks ago, it was about five dollars. The papers say that our money is worth more now, because we are doing well on vaccinations. A few people are waiting in line outside when I get there. The line moves quickly. They’ve designed the store to get people in and out efficiently. There’s little space to pause and calculate whether things are worth their price. Customers spot things, get them, and think later. The one glitch is right at the door. When we enter, we wave our hands in front of a temperature scanner. It isn’t working well. The sensor is more directional than I’ve seen elsewhere. I have to try it a few times before it lets me in. I’m looking for shoelaces. Both of mine have broken. I’m told that shoemakers carry them, but the one in the neighborhood is never open when I go past. Retail shoe stores don’t have them. Drugstores don’t either. I still think in terms of US stores where you can get just about anything anywhere. I look for the shoelaces here in the twenty-shekel store. I don’t see them. I start to ask a worker. I forget the word, though I used to know it. I lift my foot and pull on one of them. The worker shakes her head. “Shoelaces,” she says in English. “No. We don’t have them. Sorry.” I thank her and wind my way through the store and out. The remnants of my current laces will hold for a few more days. I’ll try two shoemakers on Friday morning. They have to have them somewhere.
Thursday, January 14th, 2021
A hand comes into view and presses something hard against my forehead. A finger pulls the trigger. It beeps. The voice of our usual guest announces “You are clear to come to pray.” I look up. He has swiped the scanning thermometer from the reception desk. He goes around doing this to several of us. He skips the boss, whose desk is too large for him to reach across. We shamble over to the hallway. It’s colder than usual there. Several weeks ago, a full year’s worth of rain fell in one day. It’s been dry and warmer since then. Now it’s raining again. The guest opens a window then closes it. A tenth man shows up. The boss’s son calls out the first line of the opening psalm, starting the prayers. My mind wanders. Someone had asked me a question about music production at lunchtime. My answer to him had rambled. I talked about Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, and Taylor Swift. I think I got the point across, but I want to research more. The leader calls out another line in the midst of the silent prayer. Today is the new moon, so we add a paragraph. His voice brings me back to the present. I continue with the prayers, listening to the other men murmuring and shuffling, and to the rain.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line.)
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