April 15, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-04-14

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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I sleep fitfully through the night, waking up repeatedly. I resist the urge to check the news each time. By the time I go to bed, nothing flying in from Iran seems to have actually gotten here. If there's any news that I need to know, I'll hear a siren.

In each wave of sleep, I have a different, complex dream. To my surprise, in the next to last, characters and situations from the previous ones recur, leading to a moment where everything depends on my saying the word "perhaps." Damned if I know.

I wake up for the last time just before my alarm is set to go off. I finally go to my computer and check the news. Everything is OK. On TV, I can't understand what the anchors and guests are saying, but there's a lot of laughter as headlines and footage scroll by.

Iran threw over 300 drones, missiles, and whatnot at us. One did a bit of damage to an Army base. Falling shrapnel injured a little Bedouin girl.¹ That's it.

The commander-in-chief of Iran's army is quoted as saying, “The operation achieved a level of success that exceeded our expectations.”² The mind boggles at how low those expectations must have been.

We knocked out a lot of the stuff flying at us. The rest were shot down by the US, the UK, Jordan, and, I think, France.³

It felt like the squabbling Avengers had all shown up as a unified force to fight Thanos, but with less stirring background music and a less effective enemy. After all the scimitar-rattling, I'm reminded of what I'd been told Art D'Lugoff used to say: "A roar of drums, a blare of trumpets, and out steps a Fig Newton."

I eat breakfast and check the news, then head out earlier than usual, though a bit later than I'd hoped. Wrangling with technology slowed me down.

I've simplified my home network significantly. I've taken down my old NAS. For some reason that I can't recall, I had had a router of my own hooked into the one from my ISP, and I'd been routing everything through the chain of them. I've pulled out the added router. My home network now just has my MacBook, the new NAS, my Android TV, my phone, and my Echo Dot.

On the Dot, Alexa talked me though setting her up on the revised network, as well as helping with other tasks. My mother used to kid me (in one of the very few instances of her exhibiting a sense of humor) about my conversations with "your friend Alexa" when I was still living in her basement. I'm in a new basement now, but with the same virtual friend.

Getting a few fine points worked out takes time and requires a lot of yelling at other technology. They turn out to be due to my switching my media library to the new NAS, and to the flaky Internet connection outside my apartment, which is beyond my control. Eventually, I give up and head out.

I walk down to City Hall. I have an appointment at a clinic there to get a blood pressure Holter monitor.⁴ (I had thought it was a "halter monitor," since it's worn somewhat like other medical halters. I have heard some people in the offices call it a "Holter halter.")

The clinic isn't listed on the building directory in the lobby. It's mentioned on a piece of paper taped to the wall. I get through the paperwork easily at the front desk, and sit down to wait for the technician. The news is playing on the TV there: more headlines, more footage, more chuckling.

The technician who sets me up with the Holter monitor is clear, efficient, and amiable. We do almost everything in Hebrew. She switches briefly to English when I don't understand something, then switches back. Once it's on, she gives me some instructions first in Hebrew and then in English, to make sure that I know how to proceed. I do. I'll come back tomorrow to have them take it up and give me the results.

I go around the back of City Hall when I leave. The Cinematheque has been planning to put in a café there. They haven't yet. I head in the vague direction of work.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm headed until I see a plaque for "Children of Tehran Square." I then know where I am. When I first came here, I lived across the street.

With Iran on my mind, I wonder for the first time what the square's name is about. I can't quite understand the plaque.

A web search points me to their story and film of the children.⁵ They were rescued from the Holocaust and got here by a circuitous route that led through Tehran. There's an hour-long documentary about them out there, which looks interesting.⁶

From that landmark, I know the way to just about everything in the neighborhood.⁷ I get to the office fairly quickly, and eventually start working.

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Our city government, as well as others in the region, snapped into action when needed, in what amounted to a good practice run.⁸ As our mayor said, "We do not rely on (just thinking) 'Everything will be OK.'"

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While a lot of cultural activities have been cut back during the war, some major performances are still happening. YNET looks at what's being presented at, among other places, the opera, the Philharmonic, and the dance center that I haven't gotten back to in a while.⁹

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A paper in Ethnomusicology Forum looks at listening and the soundscapes here during recent wars.¹⁰ There are a lot of different areas of listening: to the actual explosions and the like, to the sirens warning of incoming attacks, and to the music that is being played and broadcast at the time. I have only had a chance to skim through the paper, but there's a lot to dig into for Sound and Listening folks.

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I get home and try to do some stuff on the computer. My Internet access is down again. Eventually it comes back.

I try to add some films to my Plex library. The matching algorithm doesn't work. I ask on Facebook. The guy who makes the explanation videos is quite helpful, but everyone else acts like the usual arrogant, belligerent jerks. I get angry, go sit in my big chair and watch more of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour movie.

I think I need to calm down. Looks like I picked the wrong day to wear a blood pressure monitor.

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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.