[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #028
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26 March, 2021
This is issue number 28 of the newsletter.
It's been a quiet week. The high point was Election Day, as I describe it below. Passover starts Saturday night, so I've made some desultory preparations for it. I have a new vacuum cleaner. It isn't a robot, but it was far less expensive than anything else. I have a hard time spending money on practical things for myself.
I did a bit of sound editing for the film project. I really need a collaborator, someone with whom I can sit down and work on the mundane parts of it, who also knows more of the way things work here. I had a great team in Cleveland, but they're an ocean away.
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Onward!
Tuesday afternoon: Voting gets easier each time. I walk into a school a couple of blocks from my house. I’m holding my government ID and a postcard with information on my voting station. A person by the door looks at the postcard. “Room 3, up the stairs to the right.” When I get up there, I don’t see a Room 3. I figure it’s the room labeled 62.3.
I go in. I’m right. They take the ID and postcard and check my name off on a list. They hand me an envelope and point. Two cardboard structures rest on school desks behind me. Behind them, slips of paper are neatly arrayed with the symbols of the parties. I quickly spot mine and slip it into the envelope. I step back out into the center of the room and go to a large dropbox, the same shade of blue as the envelope and voting stations.
My envelope has a slip of plastic covering a layer of glue to seal it. Confident posts online have stated both that envelopes must be sealed and that they must not. I look over at the workers and start to lift off the plastic strip. Several people say “Don’t seal it” in unison, in English. Maybe only English speakers are confused by this. I nod at them, drop the envelope in the box unsealed, and head out.
Two blocks further down, I catch a bus to the larger city. I have only been there a couple of times in the past year. The street is mobbed. Election Day is a national holiday. Crowds have headed downtown.
I go into the mall. I find the restroom that I remembered fairly quickly. The place where I had hoped to eat is harder to spot. I had recalled that it was between the small record store and the camera shop. When I get there, I see that they are next door to each other, with nothing between them. The eatery is down one level. It’s crowded. None of the sandwiches in the display case have labels that I can see. All the tables are taken. I bail out.
I wander around and spot a Burger King. I line up for an ordering kiosk. When I get there, I see that they no longer have an English option. It should be easy for me to figure things out from the Hebrew and the pictures, but I’m too hungry to think. I cancel the order and wander on. I see a place calling itself a deli in the basement. I order by pointing at things: a plate of barbecue chicken, noodles, and mixed vegetables, as well as a lemonade. I get stuck on the word for “lemonade” in Hebrew. I recall it in German/ It’s the same.
After I eat, I wander around until I find an exit. I head down the street, realize that I’m going in the wrong direction, turn around, and head back.
I go into the larger record store across the street. On the ground floor, they are blasting Rage Against The Machine. Upstairs, in Jazz and Classical, the music is more gentle. It takes me a moment to recognize it. I ask the worker if it’s the Masada Strings. “Yes. You would have a very hard time finding music more beautiful than this.” We chat for a while, in English, about this and related music. The worker is called away. I browse for a while but don’t get anything.
Outside, the sky is oddly grey. It’s getting chilly. Today was supposed to be warm and bright. I check my phone. It’s later in the afternoon than I had thought. The news is saying that there’s been an abrupt increase in smog. The sharav wind is blowing in red dust from the North African desert. We’re told to limit time outdoors.
I also see that the heads of two parties ran into each other in competing campaign stops within the mall. I didn’t see it, but the place is designed to make it as hard as possible to tell what else might be happening there.
I get an ice cream sandwich from a shop that specializes in them. As I step away once I’ve gotten it, I hear a marching band. I turn and look across the street. A group of young people, some of whom have instruments, are wandering toward me. Some carry flags. Most wear t-shirts from another of the left-wing parties. The drummers are playing together. The people with other instruments don’t seem to have decided on what songs to play. Charles Ives would feel at home here.
Across the intersection from them, another group is marching in the other direction. One has a snare drum. I assume that they’re from another party. They are marching away from me, so I can’t see the front of their t-shirts. Down the road from the other corner, a group of people from my party are standing around with green flags. They aren’t marching. Maybe they need a drummer.
I wait for the bus back to my town. A woman rolls past slowly on a bicycle. She tows a skateboard behind her. Two little girls sit on it, waving and yelling “Bibi! Bibi!” I doubt that they’re voting yet. Still, like other people in this chaotic democracy, for a few meters, at least, their voices are heard.
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line!)
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