pura vida

Almost time for us to leave for our South American whirlwind. Only one week left!

Taking advantage of insanity

So by now many of us have read about the palestinian boy sent to infilitrate an israeli settlement, across the green line, who was sent in the hopes of his relatives that he would be shot and spared a life of mental illness. Mental illness indeed remains a stigma in the palestinian territories and israel alike, despite the number of riotously insane people, many of whom consider themselves to be active members of the knesset and PLO negotiating teams.....but I digress. As distressing as this story is, there remains a few things to be cheered by.
1. The boy wasn't shot
2. The IDF were responsible enough to recognize that the boy was acting not of his own will
3. Not a shot was fired
4. The family was caught
5. The boy will now likely get proper care by mental health authorities
6. The IDF is clearly acting with a renewed sense of responsibility and cautiousness which belies many palestinians dogged belief in the solely reactive nature of the military.

Encouraging not depressing.

Disaster Experts: For better of worse

We had a wild and completely untamed storm that hit tel aviv the other day. It was hurricane like in scope and damaged most of the boardwalk from the south end ( Jaffa- where we live) to the north end ( leading into herziliya). I was out running the first and second days of the storm and saw bricks in the deck of the old city in Jaffa, being thrown up in the air. I watched as trees fell in front of me and braches flew beside me. I hopped over piles of cigarettes that made their way up onto the roads and somehow found eachother like brothers in kind. Mountains of refuse lay everywhere. It was as if the sea got fed up and threw up all the garbage that was laying ill in it's bowels.

After two days the storm stilled it's voluptous winds and the rain came to a peter. Rays of sunshine peaked out and a rainbow dared to make an appearance. Within 24 hours, Isreal sprung into action and managed to almost completely rehabilitate our damaged waterfront and the beautiful port in old jaffa. It was pretty incredible to see how poor we are at prevention and how skilled we are at disaster response after the fact. Ironic and comical almost.

Break on through ( to the other side)...

Music has always drawn me in. It pulls me tight like an octupus latches onto prey with it's tentacles of force. But instead of sucking me dry it infuses me and keeps my mind and soul moist. When I was overseas with my boyfriend (A), we spent some time visiting at my parents place in Toronto. We try to get home to my parents and brothers for as many of the jewish holidays as possible. Anyway, I have a gorgeous baby grand piano there that I hadn't touched in a good ten years. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and if I can't practice like an obsessive fiend than I tend to avoid playing with technical imperfection. I've started to play again. Just a little bit. Just enough to let the sound saturate me and let my fingers remember the patterns that they would skip through pauseless in their adherance to the sheet music. The rust slows me and my hands tire much quicker than they used to, but the piano remembered me well.

A is a professional musician. He's the consummate professional and takes his craft seriously with constant practice and consideration of all matters musical. I'm not a musician by trade but I'm constantly inspired by his playing and songwriting and expression through art. The sound of his voice is soothing for a rock/pop artist and he has a beautiful falsetto that he uses to great effect like Chris Martin from coldplay.

In Toronto, he took to my piano and began composing lyrics and improvising melody immediately. What's interesting to me is that most of rock and pop music on the piano is based on standard chords and simple patterns that change up a bit with variations in mood and key. My training is only in classical piano and I used to play a bit of jazz style that I had taught myself. Classical piano music is technical and a bit demanding and I think it was easier for me to stop playing than to do injustice to my favourite classical pieces. But, rock and pop pieces feel like fun days in the musical playground. Not intimidating for an unpracticed player at all.

Speaking of fun days in the musical playground... This past summer, during a camping trip, while some close friends of ours were making shakshuka on the beach, A composed a really funny and cute piece that translates as "allah makes shakshuka". It's become a cult favourite at shows in between his real set list. On wednesday during a little show A is having, we're making shakshuka to spice up the night a little bit. It's the funniest concept to build a fan base but we live in Israel and people here love food, so it makes sense to cook our way to success. hahaha...