February 22, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-02-21

Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...

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For the first time in weeks, I go out without a raincoat. I'm still wearing a warm hoodie. I see people outside in short sleeves, but I'll be getting home late tonight, when it will be relatively cold.

Few of the usual critters are around. The cats have left their hotel to explore the dry land, like their ancestors leaving the Ark did after a somewhat longer wait. The hedgehog is wherever he hangs out when not foraging. Some dogs are out walking their humans. The snails have gone back into the bushes. The slugs are snuggled all warm in their appropriate low-sodium environment.

With the local elections scheduled for this coming Tuesday, campaigns are ramping up, though they seem more muted than before.

Our main local news site has a profile of the current mayor (who they support for reelection, as do I).¹ There's information that I hadn't known. It says that he was with Home Front Command, the group who, among other things, are responsible for civil defense and for rocket alerts.² He also has "many years of experience in urban logistics," which has led to his having effective responses to both the pandemic and the war.

(Google Translate does the usual odd things with the article. While the mayor's name is pronounced Fadlon, it shows up as at least four different wrong guesses in the course of the piece. And the supposed headline, "Once a son, Once a Capricorn," would take more energy than I have at the moment to untangle.)

Another news site has popped up in recent days, but I think it exists mostly to promote the "liberal bloc."³

Yet another site has appeared representing a slate as a "new contract."⁴

It appears that the people who run Eurovision have rejected the song that our country had proposed for our singer as "too political." It's called "October Rain." You can guess from the title what it's probably about. As I linked yesterday, there's been a burst of songs in reaction to the massacre and war. People are writing about little else.⁵

I'm just wondering, from the title, how much it might sound like Guns N' Roses.

There's uproar brewing over an interview with a media personality here. A report says that he "claimed that the punishment from God was deserved because of immoral actions by the Israeli public during the holidays, including breaking up prayer services in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur last year."⁶

This flashes me back to an event when I was in high school. After a terrorist massacre in a town to our north, it was reported that a prominent rabbi had connected the number of children killed to the number of violations of one particular religious law in the building that they were in.⁷

The rabbi clarified and walked back the statement a week later.

My father always strongly disliked this rabbi and his followers. As it happened, he gave a guest sermon in our synagogue that Shabbat. He went on a verbal rampage, tearing into the rabbi for it, working from a text in the Book of Isaiah: "Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto Me."⁸

I seem to recall that at one point he slammed his fist down on the lectern, and something fell off of it, making a loud bang. It was quite impressive. But I think the main takeaway from it was that it wasn't good to make my father mad.

After a draining but mundane workday, I go to a film at the Cinematheque. I get there early, and wander around the City Hall complex before reaching the theater's entrance in the back. I discover, to my surprise, that there are two businesses with the same name. One, I think, is a clothing shop. The other is a gelateria (which is Italian for "highfalutin' ice cream joint").

My supper had been an inadequate plate of sushi up the street, which I ordered from a teenager with purple hair and a nose ring, who spoke so softly that I could barely hear her across the counter.

I treat myself to a cup of ice cream at the gelateria. It's quiet when I come in there. The sound system kicks in at a brutal level right when I sit down. I recognize Eminem's "Stan" as the first song. It's followed by other raps that are also built around samples of older music. I spot elements from something that I can't place by the Doobie Brothers, Malcom McLaren's "Buffalo Gals," and, most implausibly, Supertramp's "Breakfast in America." I flee before I have to experience any more desecrations of classic rock.

The tall Wim Wenders fan welcomes me as I come into the theater. They're showing Alice in the Cities tonight. Neither of us is surprised that the other is there. We get to talking about recent superhero movies. Neither of us has seen many of them. He tells me that The Batman is a visually beautiful movie to fall asleep to. OK.

When they blink the lights, I head in. I have found a new favorite seat, on the aisle, in the second row from the entrance. There are often employees in the back corner, so I skip that row and go to the one that involves the next fewer number of stairs.

I read news on my phone until the show is ready to start. The lights go down. I shut off my phone. The trailers play. The movie begins.

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Here’s an archive of past newsletters.

You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.

The newsletter’s official mailing address is 304 S. Jones Blvd #3567, Las Vegas NV 89107. (I’m in Israel, but if physical mail comes to me at that Las Vegas address, it’ll get scanned and emailed. I don’t expect that to happen much. If you want to send me physical mail, ask me for a real address.)

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L'hitraot.